Black Widow V: The Doppelganger Effect
by Triptych
Summary: A Classic BattleTech love story. Past and present collide as the reborn Joshua Wolf stalks his deadliest prey, Natasha Kerensky. Will the two former lovers ever find peace or will they relive their tragedy once again?
1. Disclaimer

This is a fanfiction work based on Classic Battletech. Classic Battletech is the property of Wizkids LLC. All rights reserved.  
  
This is the fifth installment of the new Black Widow stories. Although each tale is designed to stand alone, they are all part of a larger plot and so I would suggest you read the entire series if you can. Please enjoy. All comments are welcome! 


	2. I Prologue

**Black Widow: The Doppelganger Effect**

**By Triptych**

_Who controls the past controls the future:_

_Who controls the present controls the past._

-George Orwell

_Teach them politics and war __  
So that theirs sons   
May study mathematics and philosophy   
In order for their sons the right   
To study painting, poetry, music and architecture_   
-John Adams

_If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus,_

_what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not?****_

-1 Corinthians

_Terra, Fall Present, 3067._

As the afternoon wore on, it gave the old man some time for himself. Ever since he was transferred to a minimum-security camp just ten years ago and due to his declining physical abilities, the powers that be had decided to let him live out the rest of his twilight years with minimal supervision. Not that it bothered him at all for he preferred to be away from fellow humans as much as possible. During meal times he would sit in his own little corner at the far side of the mess hall, preferring to be only with himself as he gorged on the little scraps that they gave him; it was one of the few pleasures left that he so often looked forward to every day.

His only other passion was roses. It gave him so much joy when he realized that the camp had an abandoned greenhouse. After months of cajoling and begging his captors to allow him to rebuild the greenhouse, he had leapt for joy when they had finally relented seven years ago. It was the only time they had ever seen him display emotion after he was sentenced to life imprisonment. He had spent months doing backbreaking work, allowing no one to assist him in his endeavor; some of the other prisoners and even some guards offered to help but the old man spurned them all, preferring to do the labor of love all by himself.

Gathering scraps of metal from the refuse bins, his scarred and deeply callused hands required no tools other than sheer will in order to shape and mold the broken glass panes and the rusted metal into a functioning greenhouse once again. When he had finally completed the arduous task, he once again pleaded with his captors for seeds with which to grow some plants and was completely overjoyed that he was given some tiny roses for which he could have only dreamt about. Perhaps it was decreed that if they gave him some measure of happiness, he would just waste away his remaining time and would bother them no more. He did not disappoint them.

In the following years he had trimmed, cut and spliced the roses until he had a virtual rainbow of colors in his own little greenhouse. How he wished to be with them every minute of his life but of course since he was still in a prison, he had to undergo routine checks as well as returning to his cell in the bunkhouse every evening. If only they would have let him sleep in the greenhouse, he would be that much more content with what he had but as they say, one can't have everything and so he became just merely content by spending every waking day with his beloved roses.

And so it happened on that fateful afternoon, as the old man was busy trimming and arraigning his latest spliced masterpiece that a hooded visitor came to see him. The prisoner was so busy placing the large black rose into a ceramic pot that he himself made that he did not notice the hooded man until he spoke.

"Greetings and salutations." The hooded man had a very raspy voice, thickly accented yet had carried power- honeysuckle and brimstone, sweet yet deadly.

The old man quickly turned around, the flowerpot in his hands. "Who?"

"I am quite disappointed, Vesar. You were a lot sharper than this in our last meeting." The man removed the hood covering his head to reveal a face hidden in a grotesque leather mask. "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste."

Vesar Kristofor could not believe his own tired eyes. "My lord, you have returned to me."

"Indeed I have." The hooded man could not help but admire the beauty of the black rose. "These are quite exquisite."

"Why did it take so long?" Vesar's hands shook as he placed the pot on a nearby wooden pallet. "Have you come at last to free your devoted servant, Milord?"

"Yes. I have come to free my most loyal servant."

"Oh God." Vesar's eyes welled with tears of redemption. "How many decades have I endured punishment, yet I have never given them the secret. It was according to my oath that it would never be revealed to the likes of them."

"You have indeed kept your secrets safe, Vesar. That is why I have come at last to give you your freedom." The masked man said. "I'm sure you were well aware of the schism?"

"Yes. The schism. Is this why you have at last been able to communicate with me, Lord? Since the order of Blake now has control of this planet?"

"Absolutely. Our alliance with the Blakists has allowed me to venture freely among them. Of course, they do not know who I really am." The masked man laughed.

"You have been a master of deception as always, Milord." Vesar smiled through his tears. "I obeyed your orders to convince Anton Marik to rebel against his brother Janos in order to sow chaos across the Free Worlds League."

"Before I give you your freedom I would like to tell you something: your suspicions were correct, Wolf's Dragoons were indeed a scout unit from the old SLDF; they were exiled and returned as the Clans."

"I knew it!" Vesar exclaimed. "I had personally made the report to Comstar High Command yet they dismissed it as utter folly, the ravings of a lunatic they said; how they were so wrong."

"Yes, they were quite wrong." The masked man produced a hyposyringe in his gloved hand. "I can free you now and your other secret will be safe forever."

Vesar finally knew that he would be free at last; his master had shown him the way. "Could I ask for one last favor, Milord?"

"Name it."

Tears dripped down Vesar's withered cheeks. "If I could just see your face once more."

"Very well." The man lifted his mask so that his face was revealed to the former ROM agent.

Vesar spoke his final words. "It's so beautiful."

As the man replaced his hood and left the dead body beside the clumps of roses he then took to the back exit of the greenhouse. It was as if the cloak had given him a measure of invisibility over the guards at the perimeter for none of them saw him enter or leave. As he passed through the ancient stone gates that served as the entrance to the converted castle, he noticed a slight chill in the air. Winter was coming sooner than expected. As he pondered that thought, his hand communicator beeped.

The masked man flipped it on. "Yes. What is it?"

"Milord, this is Meridian." A sleek voice belonging to a killer answered.

"Ah, Meridian. How is the situation today?"

"Very good, Milord." Meridian said. "_Erinyes_ is now proceeding as scheduled. It should be ready by the time of the Star League conference on Tharkad."

"Well done, Meridian. This should make up for your former disloyalty to me."

"I hope that I had at last redeemed my earlier mistakes, Milord. The _Effect_ held sway over me for longer than I expected." Meridian replied somewhat timidly but went back into his usual jolly self. "One other significant thing to report my Lord- The raid against the Falcons went extremely well, Colonel Von Strang reports minimal casualties on our side."

"What were the casualties on the opposition?" The masked man asked.

"The 8th Talon was destroyed, my Lord. Von Strang's unit went in disguised as Clan Hell's Horses raiders and so the Falcons formed up to meet them. They did not realize that we had Clan tech equipped Land-Air mechs in addition to omnis and therefore we savaged them before they knew what had happened. We caught the bulk of their forces in their barracks and nuked them." Meridian explained.

"Offer my heartiest congratulations to Colonel Von Strang; it seems that the Death Head's Regiment has now been bloodied and ready for further deployment."

"I will do that, Milord." Meridian chuckled. "One more thing, Colonel Von Strang reports that his unit has also successfully retrieved Colonel Winfield and the survivors of his regiment. Those disgusting Clanners reduced Winfield and his men to nothing more than simple laborers. We have debriefed him on his heritage and he is eager to rebuild the Stealths once again."

"An unexpected surprise." The masked man laughed. "All we need now is to return Iverson back to our fold so that he may reconstitute the Tartan Brigade and our bloodlines will be complete. I want Winfield and his men to be monitored heavily, we need to purge his remaining loyalties to the Steiners."

"It shall be done, Milord. Do you want your dropship prepared for immediate takeoff?"

"Not yet. I think I shall spend a few more days here. Brings back old memories." The masked man replied before switching his comm. unit off and stowing it within the folds of his dark clothing.

After sniffing the large black rose that he had placed on the collar of his cloak, he began to once again experience the temporary phenomenon. For a brief moment he allowed himself to be overwhelmed by a cascade of sensations and reminiscences as his previous life drowned out his orderly prescience for a few tantalizing minutes.


	3. II Meridian's Journal

_-From Meridian's Journal_

_  We had decided on radical means because we needed warriors. Not just trained soldiers but proven and capable individuals that could be molded to fight for our cause. Unlike the Clans or the Great Houses we did not have the adequate time nor did we have the resources to train and test large batches of them; what we needed were a small but lethal cadre of killers that could stand up to the best that our enemies had to offer._

_  Like the Clans we had also experimented by splicing genes from our bloodlines in order to graft the best physiological characteristics onto our splicers. It was interesting to note that strange behavioral patterns began to arise within the respective bloodlines and it gave each one a distinct character that was based on the original host. The Amaris bloodlines were charismatic negotiators and wily tacticians but they also had a bent for personal greed and power while the inherent loyalty and strong work ethic of the Von Strang lines were offset by an inborn viciousness that bordered on sadism. Needless to say, the best combinations of splicers were the ones that were a blend of our bloodlines and that of the Clans. To that end, our newest batch of splicers contained fusions of Kerensky, Pryde, Cameron, McKenna and others that were mixed in along with our inherent lines to create several regiments' worth of extremely lethal soldiers. If it gave us the advantage, then we took it; it was as simple as that._

_  Our achievements even extended towards the genetic modification of animals. The diamond shark, the beast that affected a great change among the Clans was but a variant of the Aquasaurid, a shark-like marine predator native to the seas of Apollo that once served as the emblem of our military. It was we that leaked the DNA strands of this unrivaled monster to the Clan chatterwebs that so enabled their scientist caste to create lesser creatures of their own._

_  But still we needed more. To that end, our scientists created a series of experiments based on cloning. The concept had never been put to this type of use before due to moral and ethical reasons but our philosophy was simple and direct; if you could create perfect copies of the greatest warriors in history then why not do it? If these clones could be somehow conditioned to become unquestionably loyal to our cause, should we not deploy them in large numbers to do battle with our adversaries?_

_  The concept of being able to create a complete copy of a human being from just his or her DNA offered great opportunities for us. From a single sample of dead tissue, one could recreate heart, lungs, muscles and even brain cells and combine all of these into a duplicate of the original host. That we could also genetically modify the original physiological characteristics by the use of mutagens and gene therapy in order to make them stronger and faster in order to prevent genetic degradation as well as to keep them abreast of the splicers' continuing evolution only added to our optimism. But there was a great obstacle that befell us; we also needed to have the exact mental characteristics of the host in order for us to condition the replicants to the same level of expertise that their original incarnations once attained._

_  To that end we conceived of memory and sensory implants that could somehow trigger prior recollections within the cloned cells. After all, since the clones were replicated from a single cell that went on to create the brain of the clone as well, would there be some sort of mental residue within the newly replicated cells that could trigger such a physiological sensation? The answer was quite surprising._

_  In the late twentieth century, research on brain surgery had proven that memory stays there forever. The billions of separate items of input over a lifetime are all there awaiting retrieval. Like a computer, the human brain can store all memories for life; they can be over-ridden or modified but never erased. When brain cells were stimulated with an electrode, patients reported the sensation of remembering scenes from the past. The recall was so vivid that all the details were present, including sounds, colors, and odors. They were not just recalling the experiences; they were reliving them. Scientists have concluded that the human nervous system cannot tell the difference between an actual occurrence and an experience imagined vividly, emotionally, and in detail. It was the confirmation of the old saying that the mind controls reality; if you believe in something fervently enough, your mind would create the illusion in actuality._

_  Our own clones began to experience brief reminisces of their past lives from a variety of factors. Some of the subjects reportedly became entranced by the sight of a specific acquaintance that they had once knew in their prior incarnation while others remembered brief instances of their past lives upon sensory contact with an object, a sensation in the weather or even chancing upon a familiar place. We had carefully catalogued these sensory triggers with each clone that we had created. The resulting fruits of our research bore a strange symmetry for each replicant that came from the same host had reported the exact same mental experience. Our scientists called this phenomenon the Doppelganger Effect._

_  There were a variety of ways to safeguard the clones in case of an accidental evocation of the Effect; to that end we had implanted selective memory blocks that would purposely hide a number of instances from the subjects in order to lessen the overriding effects of the phenomenon. These safeguards were extremely important for when we first began memory implants on our replicants without the memory blocks, a high percentage of them ultimately became psychotic and were consequently disposed of due to their incompatibility._

_  The remaining question was that whether the Doppelganger Effect would be a hindrance to the use of clones as warriors for our cause remained to be seen; though I suspected that our great leader would put that theory to the test in a very short time.  _


	4. III Past

_Strana Mechty, Winter Past, 2987._

  By the time he realized it, he had put his entire sibko into trouble. The members were taught to move and act as one; that each individual be responsible for one another and now, he had broken that rule and jeopardized them all.

  He had wandered off too far, leaving his star mates behind and leaping over the territorial markers that signified the boundary of his Clan's enclave was clearly not a good idea. But he had been challenged and he would by no means back away from any dare. To be called a coward was the ultimate insult and no one ever backed away from that, not unless they wished to be relegated to a lesser caste. Each one had vowed that they would sooner die than be tested out. So far they had already lost half their number from the moment they could pronounce each other's names correctly and they hadn't even begun full battle training as of yet.

  As the cold air sweeping the tundra began to seep its way into his little body, the boy stowed his hands into his jacket but it wasn't enough; the icy chill swept over him and he finally realized that he might have made a fatal mistake of wandering off too far and now he was hopelessly lost. Night was falling and all he had was his blade; Strana Mechty's ferocious predators had very little to fear from a preadolescent boy with a pocketknife. He had wanted to cry out but the wind froze his throat to the point that the pain in his tonsils had become unbearable. As the darkness fell around him, all he could do was to just plod slowly as the snowdrifts began to harden while the temperature fell even further.

  For a brief moment the boy almost thought he heard a whine from a helicopter that was no doubt searching for him but when he looked up with frozen tears on his cheeks all he could see was the snow cascading down upon him. Gritting his teeth so that it would prevent too much chattering, the boy steeled himself as he chose a direction from random and proceeded to walk towards it. Minutes turned to hours as first his toes and then his legs became numb from the cold and then finally he could no longer feel the lower half of his body. But he didn't give up; he would sooner die than give up.

  Due to the fact that his body was half-frozen, he didn't feel too much pain when the ground opened up beneath him and he fell headfirst into the hole. After an indeterminate period from when he blacked out to when he finally woke up, the boy realized that he had fallen into a burrow and he was not alone. After having remembered that he had a lighter in one of his jacket's pockets, the boy instantly withdrew it and flicked it on for an instant.

  Several pairs of yellow eyes stared back at him from a nest of gnarled roots and he quickly dropped the lighter out of sheer fright. It was fortunate that the lighter had fallen down on some dry twigs and consequently created a little bonfire that illuminated the interior of the burrow for otherwise he might have been blind. At that moment the boy had pulled out his pocketknife; if whatever predator wanted to eat him, then it would be a meal that must be earned first, he swore to himself as he quickly faced his adversaries.

  Instead of attacking, the wolf cubs merely yawned and went back to sleep.

  After realizing that the adults must have been out hunting, the boy silently laughed as he huddled beside the sleeping cubs for extra warmth; it was one of the things that he was taught in cold-weather survival training. Curiously, one of the cubs snuggled up beside him and licked his left cheek as the little fire died down. As sleep began to overtake his awareness, the boy remembered something about the wolves of Strana Mechty, they were genetically engineered and were twice as large as their Terran cousins and they were also very cunning predators.

  As silence fell over the tundra when the howling winds finally passed it by, the boy awoke to a strange sight: pieces of raw meat had been placed beside him and the wolf cubs were gone. He had remembered a lecture by one of his teachers in biology that had stated that while the smoke jaguars and ghost bears had been known to attack people on sight; there was never a recorded attack by a wolf on a human being. It was almost as if man and wolf were meant to be companions to each other.

  It was then he heard voices coming from the entrance of the burrow, calling out his name. The boy quickly grabbed a few artifacts from the den and proceeded to climb out of the entrance. As he breached the frozen surface, he came face to face with a slightly older boy who instantly recognized him and called out to the others.

  "Joshua! Are you all right?" His older brother's sibkin said as he pulled the boy up from the burrow.

  "Thank you, Travis." Joshua replied sheepishly as his older brother and the other members of the senior sibko ran over and converged around him. A Clan Wolf helicopter passed overhead in a slow circle, illuminating them with its massive searchlight before preparing to land.

  "Of all the stunts you pulled, that was by far the dumbest. You knew the weather conditions out here." His brother's face began to turn beet red despite the cold. "You were lucky that our Khan allowed all of the sibkos to participate in the search and rescue; if we were not Wolves then you might have been left here to die."

  "I would not have died, Jaime." Joshua smiled triumphantly as he pulled out a tuft of wolf fur from his pocket.

  He had won the challenge.


	5. IV Present

_Torrance, Fall Present, 3067._

  It was a world that seemed to be immune to the ravages of war. Considered to be one of the lynchpins to the economy of the Federated Sun's Crucis March, Torrance was nevertheless curiously untouched as the FedCom Civil War raged just under a year before. It was perhaps the fact that the planet's hereditary rulers, the Palatines, were consummate politicians who played off the warring sides against each other so that when it finally came to show their true loyalties, the Palatines quickly sided with Victor Steiner-Davion only when it was clear that he would be the ultimate winner.

  Another factor that worked on the side of peace was that there were no battlemech units of any significance that existed on the planet. Torrance was protected by nothing more than a small police force. Being located a short distance from the Davion capital world of New Avalon gave it a nearby source of powerful reinforcements should any foreign power dare attempt an invasion. Not that the planet would ever need that because no one ever thought it important enough to be considered as a strategic target.

  But what most did not realize was that Torrance was an extremely important world to the Davion economy.  Although there were no factories that produced military parts for the Federated Suns war machine, Torrance was critically important because the planet had a high-tech pharmaceutical industry that supplied over 80% of all medical drugs to the entire Federated Suns. Massive conglomerates such as Vinson Pharmaceuticals were well known across Davion space as purveyors of high-quality medical drugs. During the Civil War, prices of much needed medicinal drugs skyrocketed, propelling the industry to unprecedented levels of profit. The seeming military unimportance of this world escaped the eyes of opposing strategists during the FedCom Civil War and Torrance became one of the few worlds that escaped unscathed. A flood of refugees came in from across the Crucis March during the conflict but was quickly repatriated back to their homeworlds once the war had ended. There was a time that the planetary government toyed with the idea of a socialist constitution but with the political alliance of the most prominent families of the planet that enabled the population to avoid conflict, Torrance had decided to maintain its feudalistic traditions.

  It was a rather hot afternoon in the planetary capital of Kiverson City, so much so that the Killing Man had decided to take a shower in his hotel room. As the small rivers of water cascaded down his muscular body and onto the tiled floor of the shower stall, he began to mentally prepare himself for the task ahead. He would be alone on this mission, his support team was in use elsewhere in the Inner-Sphere and he would not be able to depend on them for backup. Not that he really needed it. He just needed to kill one person on this particular job.

  As he toweled off his chiseled frame, he stared into the contents of the noteputer lying on the nightstand beside the bed. When it came to black ops, units were very hard to pin down due to their secretive deployments. Both the intelligence bureaus of the Federated Suns and the Lyran Alliance had been exhausted in their efforts against one another during the FedCom Civil War and so were not of much use to him. His own intel reports had gotten very lucky however; because the Word of Blake had so thoroughly infiltrated SAFE, the intelligence bureau of the Free Worlds League, he was able to gain access to possible troop deployments of Star League special ops units in case the Mariks would ever have need of them. By knowing the general region as to where they were deployed and using a bit of guesswork, he had finally tracked down the elusive black ops unit to where their latest assignment was.

  It was right here in Torrance. Due to the fact that the Federated Suns counter-intelligence bureau was completely ravaged during the Civil War, it was easy for him to kill a low level MI5 agent and assume his identity through the _supersedure_ program. He now had an effective cover as well as a means of infiltrating the Star League intelligence apparatus in order to get to within striking range of his target. Of course, the whole operation looked easy on paper but the reality of the situation would be much more complicated. There was always the danger of bad luck as well as unexpected developments; he needed to be ready for any contingencies. This was his most crucial assignment so far and he would do his utmost to succeed.

  The new Black Widow Company was every bit as deadly as its predecessor. Looking at the organizational structure provided by his contacts, he could tell that this was a unit that had recently proven itself during an incident that occurred in the Dark Nebula. Details were sketchy but it had resulted in the destruction of an old naval base there. He was one man and his mission was to destroy an entire company of elite killers. It seemed that he had his work cut out for him.

  But as with every problem, there was always a solution. One of the keys to successfully completing the operation lay in finding that solution. After weeks of contemplation and analysis, he had finally decided on his course of action. Like everything, even the most deadly of units had a weakness. All he needed to do was to find it and exploit it. In the case of the Black Widows, the weakness it had lain in its commanding officer, Captain Natasha Kerensky- the Black Widow herself. The Widows were too dependent on her cult of personality, she was the heart and soul of the unit, without her, the Widows would be powerless. If Kerensky were eliminated, then the rest would fall as well.

  And he had the perfect means to get at the Black Widow. He had been thoroughly briefed on the phenomenon called the _Doppelganger Effect_. If used properly, he could render Natasha helpless against his killing stroke. One moment of weakness was all that he needed. But he had to be careful as well; due to the fact that he too was a clone, he could also fall prey to the effects of the phenomenon. It was important that he maintain his conditioning lest he succumb to his inner desires and end up failing his mission. That was the one thing that was important to him; he had been given a second lease on his existence and he could not fail his leader now, he needed to show them all what a superb creation he was. With the completion of this assignment, his immortality was assured.

  After carefully putting on his clothes, he ventured out onto the streets of Kiverson City. The boulevards were thronged with busy pedestrians going to and fro in their everyday lives. The capital city was experiencing a boom in its economy and everyone was in a relaxed and happy mood. The war was over and the good times were coming back again. Although some people might have noticed him walking down the street, anyone too curious would all of a sudden lose sight of him as he weaved through the foot traffic along the sidewalks of the downtown area. If anyone would try to take note of his features they would be confused as to the actual details of his appearance; some would say his eyes were of a light blue color, others would say green and even more would say perhaps gray; if anyone was to take note of his facial features, all would have said that they were nondescript, almost generic; if his hair color was observed witnesses would have sworn it was somewhere between light brown or sandy-haired; the conclusion that anyone would have gotten from all that was that he was practically _invisible_. In a sense, his formidable skills allowed him to blend immediately with his surroundings so as to seem like he was indeed a ghost.

  But beyond his chameleon-like features there was a certain stance in his walk, a lethal confidence that emanated out from his body warning all potential troublemakers to turn and go the other way. Even though he was not armed, his entire body had been honed by training and experience into a lethal weapon. It was almost as if he did not need to be armed.

  The Killing Man continued his relentless walk towards the target.

  After squinting into the telescopic lens for almost fifteen minutes, Dominic Durant pulled his eyes back when he heard the side door open. His right eye was hurting for being focused too long and his left eye was hurting from being forced closed at the same length of time. After adjusting his tired eyes back into standard focus he noticed Captain Natasha Kerensky smile at him as she placed a cup of coffee on a nearby table. Although a lot of people said she was cold and distant, Dominic thought that she was amiable enough; then again, he had earned her respect in previous operations because of his superb intelligence gathering and analytical skills.

  "Thanks a million, Captain. It's just what I needed." Dominic grinned as he stood up from the chair and strode over to take the steaming cup of java.

  "You're welcome, Major." Natasha said as she took his place and began squinting into the telescopic lens. "Any new developments?"

  "Not much." Dominic said as he sat down on an adjoining bed and began taking small sips in order not to scald his tongue. "We have determined that the arms dealer Sergei Von Schnook has been traced to that office that we are observing but so far, nothing has happened as far as confirmation that the missing mechs are here."

  "Do we really need any confirmations as to this point? Don't we have all the information we need to take action?" Natasha asked as she continued to scan the street down below. The intel team had rented a nondescript hotel room six stories up across the street from the target office and had set up a observation post with electronic eavesdropping equipment. Most of the data was already evaluated, but no concrete evidence was found so far, just rumors and suppositions.

  "As intel liaison for the SLDF, it's my duty to let you know that there may be some friction between us and the Federated Suns if we act without confirming the source. If we're wrong and we kill the wrong people, heads could roll." Dominic said.

  "And if we don't act it could also mean disaster for us all and we'd still get blamed for it." Natasha said without taking her eyes off the scope.

  "True. Well, as commander of operations, it's your call. I'll support you either way, you know that." Dominic smiled.

  "Thanks, Major. You've proven your worth to me in the past. Your analysis was invaluable when we had that strike in the Dark-" Natasha's words were cut off as she noticed a figure down the street that had walked into her line of sight. It seemed to be no more than an innocent pedestrian that was walking and minding his own business but it was the way he was walking that startled her.

  "What is it?" Dominic said as he instantly stood up from the bed.

  "Shh." Natasha ordered as she squinted to get a closer look at his face. As if by magic the man turned and looked up as though he was checking the weather and his facial features were then revealed to her.

  Within a few scant seconds Natasha immediately took her eyes off the scope as she steadied herself when she nearly toppled over from the chair. The moment she saw his face there was an immediate sense of déjà vu, it was as if she had seen him before despite the fact that her mind was telling her that it was the first time that she did. Almost immediately, a flood of memories about her and the man she just saw inundated her senses; it was as if they knew each other most intimately, as if he was the one person who knew her, more than she knew herself. The recollections continued to overwhelm her as she recalled nights being spent in his embrace, the warmth of his body and the moistness of his lips. The memories were followed by a flood of emotions: love, affection, hope, fear, anger, loss and sadness; the feelings made her want to both laugh with joy and wail with sorrow all at the same time. The cascade of thoughts was too much for her and the room began to whirl as she lost her sense of balance and direction and then she finally fell off her chair onto the carpeted floor.

  The next few minutes were a test of her poise and control as she struggled to regain her senses back as she was helped onto her feet. As she returned back to normalcy, she noticed Dominic giving her a worrying look as he propped her up.

  "Are you okay?" He asked.

  "I'm fine." Natasha said as she shoved him away and squinted back into the telescope to get a fix on the man below but he was gone.

  With a sigh, Natasha took her eyes away from the scope and sat down beside the bed. She was in full form just fifteen minutes ago, now it looked like she hadn't slept in ages. She felt awfully tired.

  "Captain, what happened?" Dominic asked after a few minutes had passed. "What did you see?"

  "Nothing. If you don't mind, Major, I'll tell the team to go on standby." Natasha said wearily as she got up and walked towards the door. Dominic said nothing as he saw her leave the room and closed the door behind her.

  Down on the street below, Joshua smiled as walked on by. The first phase of his plan was completed.


	6. V Past

_Strana Mechty, Summer Past, 2988._

  As was customary for the new saKhan of Clan Wolf, Kerlin Ward made an inspection tour of all the _sibkos_ in the enclave. After all, they would be the next batch of warriors who would be commanded by him when the time came. It was important that he knew the strengths and potential weaknesses of these _sibkin_ so that he could plan accordingly.

  So far, he had worked his way up from inspecting the youngest _sibkos_ and now he was on his way to the batches that were nearing graduation in order to be selected for their trials of position that would determine their place in the Clan hierarchy. There were only an average of a dozen cadets left within these senior batches and they were still divided among trueborn and freeborn lines. Following Wolf Clan traditions, once they had been whittled down to these numbers, the _sibkos_ would then be merged together by age groups so that trueborns and freeborns would learn to cooperate with each other. It was important because the Clan placed a lot of emphasis on freeborn warriors in addition to those sired in artificial wombs. Once the differing _sibkos_ were combined, both camps would need each other to survive to the next level. To their enemies, it was considered a weakness, but the Wolves themselves considered it to be their greatest strength.

  Kerlin stopped and faced the last _sibko_ that he was inspecting that day. Loremaster Threll Radick had earlier briefed him on this particular group for it was the culmination of an experiment that Wolf Clan scientists had deemed necessary many years ago. So far the results had been spectacular; this _sibko_ had the least attrition rate in the history of the Clan. Now those latent theories would be put to the test in a very short while.

  The cadets numbered close to twenty and were standing in ranks as they waited for him to speak. As Kerlin stood in front of the podium while facing them he noticed that there seemed to have been a pecking order which determined the way they were formed up; although cliques within _sibkos_ were not unusual, what was strange was that this particular batch seemed to be under the leadership of three teenage girls. He needed to find out more about this particular arrangement, would it be unique to this group or would future batches be like this as well?

  "Wolflings, I am Kerlin Ward. You have been gathered here today because as the new saKhan of our Clan, it is my duty to make sure that our next generation of warriors would be worthy enough of being called wolves." Kerlin scanned their reactions as he addressed the group. So far there was none.

  "Our founders, the great Kerenskys, considered the lupines of Strana Mechty as the epitome of the warrior spirit." Kerlin continued. "Wolves are social animals, they are cunning pack hunters who instinctively know the value of cooperation when pursuing their quarry. But do not be fooled that by their group skills you assume them to be weak individually; each wolf can track and hunt on its own. But when their enemies prove too tough to tackle alone, then the wise lupines cooperate and act as one."

  "Like our namesake, we of the Wolf Clan have many enemies. They say that our liberal ways make us soft, that our near equal treatment of the lower castes makes us weak and that the large proportion of freebirth warriors in our ranks makes us incompetent. But let me tell you." Kerlin said. "The other Clans fear us now more than ever. Our warriors have vanquished all comers to our domains. The smoke jaguar may be faster, the ghost bear may be stronger, but they are nothing more than easy prey against a pack of wolves."

  Three cheers erupted from the group before Kerlin waved his hand to silence them. A few individuals still continued to roar however, until one of the girls in front made a slight gesture with her hand that immediately ceased the applause. Kerlin took a mental note of it before resuming his speech.

  "I have chosen to make this oration specifically to this _sibko_, for you are all part of a special experiment that will ensure the long-term survivability of our Clan." Kerlin said to the assembled cadets. "For yours is of a unique heritage; the first fusion of Wolf and Widowmaker bloodlines. Within your blood flows that of the great Kerenskys as well as those that once sought to rebel at our traditions of being Clans. Like our namesake the lupines of Strana Mechty, who use all the resources of the land to dominate the planet's continents to thrive and grow, we must also do the same. When we Wolves absorbed Clan Widowmaker, we did not waste the vanquished assets of our opponents; rather we use their rebellious spirit to make our Clan stronger. Is this not the way of the cunning wolf, _quiaff_?"

  "_Aff_!" The combined shouts of the cadets reverberated across the camp.

  "Within the next few days, this _sibk_o will be combined with a freebirth group to bring it back to full strength. Work as team; learn the strengths and weaknesses of your new _sibkin_ but most of all, remember that you are all part of the same Clan. Only by working together will you achieve greatness. That is all." Kerlin waved his hand to dismiss the group but the cadets did not move until the three girls in front gestured that it was time to go; within seconds, the group had dispersed to return to their quarters.

  As Kerlin turned and walked towards the administration building, Loremaster Threll Radick instantly caught up to the young saKhan and began walking alongside of him. 

  "A very nice little speech, saKhan Ward; you have the beginnings of a great orator." Threll said.

  "Perhaps." Kerlin sighed. "If I get that far."

  "Ah, but you will, that I believe." The older man smiled. "Our Khan would not have chosen you to be his successor if he deemed you not worthy enough. It is important that you are blessed with these skills; for one who leads must be equally masterful in the arts of both war and politics in order for our Clan to survive and succeed."

  "To have your confidence honors me, Loremaster Radick." Kerlin laughed as they strode inside the building interior. "I think that our next generation of warriors will be ready, though some thoughts annoy me from what I had observed today."

  "I can see that you were somewhat rattled by the behavior of our experimental _sibko_, _quiaff_?"

  "_Aff_. You are observant as always, Loremaster. Not a single little detail escapes your watchful eye." Kerlin said to the older man. "I was not rattled, I was merely intrigued by the unexpected behavior of this particular _sibko_."

  "That is why I was chosen to be the keeper of the Wolf Clan _Remembrance_, saKhan Ward." Threll chuckled. "In addition to being a good poet, one must also be a good observer in order to record the truth. This particular _sibko_ has a mind all of its own; I sense an inherent unpredictability within."

  "You are correct. Did you notice that this _sibko_ seemed somewhat too disciplined, too controlled?"

  Threll seemed lost in thought for a moment before answering him as they continued walking. "_Aff_, saKhan Ward. Not only were they too controlled, they were controlled by three young females."

  "Correct, One blond and two red-haired girls; a triumvirate. From what I could sense the two redheads seemed to be the focal point of the group." Kerlin said. "It was almost as if the two were co-leaders of the entire _sibko_."

  "And that the blond seemed to be the glue that kept them from tearing each other apart." Threll added. "The two redheads' features seem so similar they might be mistaken as identical twins at first glance."

  "Agreed. If not for the blond, the other two would turn on each other until only one would remain standing. That is the way it always is; there can only be one alpha wolf leading the pack." Kerlin said. "Strange that this _sibko_ would be dominated by females."

  "The Widowmakers always had the highest proportion of females in their warrior castes compared to any of the other Clans before or since." Threll recalled. "With a fusion of their bloodlines with ours, it seems to be reasserting itself."

  "Interesting." Kerlin stopped in front of his office door. "Before I bid you farewell, I would like to know the names of those three young females."

  "I knew you would ask that and therefore I already reviewed their files." Threll winked. "The blond one is called Katya while the two redheads are named Natasha and Anastasia, respectively."

  "Can you tell me anything more about them? What are their psych profiles like?" Kerlin queried.

  "Seems our developmental psychologists came to the same conclusions as we have." Threll said. "Katya is considered the quiet one though she is quite strong in body and mind; Natasha is rebellious but possesses superb warrior skills while Anastasia seems hell-bent on beating everyone else, irregardless of the cost."

  "This will get interesting by the time they are selected for their trials of position in the coming years, I am sure." Kerlin said.

  "Or it might even be sooner than that." The Wolf Loremaster concluded before turning to walk away.


	7. VI Present

_Torrance, Fall Present, 3067._

  Despite the air conditioner having been turned to full blast that rendered the office room to be nearly as cold as the Arctic Circle, perspiration continued to soak Mr. Peach's clothing. The rivers of sweat generated by his anxiety made his bulky outfit even more uncomfortable as it stretched and glued the artificial fibers of his heavy pants and coat to the point that he nearly drowned in his own pressure. It also didn't help that the sweat would run down his forehead and onto his face to the degree that he had to continuously go to the back room to wipe it off his brow so that he could get the proper fit for his mask without clouding the eye slits.

  A light tap on his left shoulder startled him so much that he inadvertently dropped his shotgun. He quickly tried to scramble for it as it fell from his right hand to no avail, the weapon fell with a muffled but heavy thud onto the carpeted floor. Since he had the safety switch deactivated, it was a miracle that it didn't go off.

  "What in the hell are you doing?" His brother asked incredulously.

  "I'm sorry, Ray. I-I don't know if I could do this." Mr. Peach said nervously.

  "You muppet!" He could see the baneful eyes in his brother's werewolf mask. "Don't say my real name!"

  Mr. Peach gulped. "Oh God. I messed up again."

  "Keep it to yourself. There's no one here right now so just forget about it, okay?"

  "Yeah, I guess I'm just a little nervous, that's all." Mr. Peach said as his brother picked up the shotgun from the floor and gave it back to him.

  "Hey, what the hell you guys doing in there?" A loud voice shouted from the slightly opened door. "Get out here now!"

  Mr. Peach and his brother quickly recovered and ventured out into a larger room. Several dozen people lined the stark white walls around the large hallway, they were leaning against the walls, some were in a daze of denial while others were sobbing and crying. About four other masked men were watching over them with shotguns on the ready against any resistance.

  "Mr. Black, I need to talk to you." Mr. Peach's brother said to a man wearing a vampire mask.

  "What is it, Mr. Brown?" Mr. Black said as he kept a machine pistol close to his side.

  Mr. Brown was apologetic. "Mr. Peach is pretty nervous about this. I don't think he should be watching the hostages."

  "So what do you suggest he do? Make coffee? You tell him to get his act together, Goddamn it! We're all in this together no matter what now." Mr. Black shouted.

  "I know that. We are with you all the way but if it comes to more killing," Mr. Brown gestured over to the security guard on the far side of the room, lying in a pool of his own blood. "I don't think he can do it."

  "Fine then!" Mr. Black was angry before whispering into Mr. Brown's ear. "Just remember that he will fry with us if we get caught."

  "I'll deal with him, okay?"

  "You do that. He's lucky we didn't call him Mr. Pink. Now stop bothering me." Mr. Black said before heading towards another room.

  Mr. Brown went over to his brother and patted him on the back. "Just sit tight, okay? We should be outta here soon."

  "Okay. But just to let you know, if it comes to shooting these hostages, I-I won't be able to do it." Mr. Peach stammered.

  "Then don't." His brother said. "Just stick close by me and everything will be okay."

  "Right, but what about Mr. Gold? He's out of control in there." Mr. Peach said.

  Mr. Brown was getting irritated. "You let Mr. Black worry about Mr. Gold okay? We watch the hostages."

  "Sorry. I'll shut up now." Mr. Peach said before moving away to a corner where he could be by himself. He was beginning to feel sorry that he had even been involved with this group in the first place. Mr. Peach had a sobering feeling that his brother and he might end up in prison or even worse, dead.

  It didn't start out like this; then again, nothing ever does. Mr. Peach's real name was Art Alexander. He was a former Liberal Arts major in New Avalon's Gogh-Bukowski University. Gogh-Bukowski was well known in some circles as a school for intellectual rebels of the establishment. Furious debates as to the merits of being a member state of the new Star League led to angry demonstrations that later turned into vicious rioting. Art and his older brother Ray were infuriated at the lack of opportunities for people in the private sector; it seemed that most of the economy was earmarked for nothing but war and the lowly civilian was the ultimate loser; if you weren't part of the ruling class or the military, then you were a second-place citizen.

  Within months of his sophomore term in the college, Art and his brother joined up with a militant anti-establishment group dedicated to the disillusionment of the Star League as well as the removal of the Davion family from power. The group was led by a charismatic leader named Frank Chavez who argued that the continuing subservience to the Davions and other feudal families were the cause of all the misery that was plaguing the Federated Suns. Demonstrations and debates were the order of the day, the rest of the time they spent lounging at the local coffee houses in order to formulate their latest conspiracies. It was a fun time since most of the group came from wealthy and influential families who provided them with every comfort possible despite the fact that their sons contributed largely nothing in return.

  As the months went by and the economic crunch from the FedCom Civil War took its toll, their funding from their formerly wealthy parents dried up and the once wealthy bohemians had to look for menial work in order to support their constant partying and political debate sessions. This added to their resentment of the establishment even more. Within months of this dreary existence, their leader Frank Chavez hit on a bold new plan for the group. They would resort to force of arms as well as armed resistance to the hated Davions and their kin. Some of the more pacifistic members dropped out and newer, more violent ones came in as they began to establish a network of illegal arms smuggling so that they would have the weapons necessary for their glorious revolution. Of course, in order to buy weapons one must have money and so the members of this new revolutionary group engaged in drug smuggling as well as bank robberies in order to get the much needed cash; the mix of crime and brutality all in the name of a better world became a self-perpetuating spiral for them all.

  Art never wanted to be a killer; he felt that the revolution could be achieved by peaceful means. But then he did not want to work for a living either, so he reluctantly went along with the group's plans for kidnapping and drugs to finance their aims. In his view, you couldn't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, so if a few innocents died, so be it; they were martyrs for a good cause anyway.

  But then a few weeks ago things radically changed. Frank had found a mysterious backer who could finance them with the weapons necessary to make their biggest statement to the establishment yet. Of course, there would be more violence, but if they could pull this off, their reputation would be assured. All they had to do was to break into the headquarters of Vinson Pharmaceuticals and steal the latest batch of medicinal drugs destined for the soldiers of the AFFS. With one fell swoop, the group could make a statement as well as earning a reputation that they so desperately wanted. Since Torrance was defended by only a small police force, a half-dozen armed men with battlemech support would be unstoppable in carting away the riches from these corrupt conglomerates, Frank reasoned. It was bold and dangerous plan but they were nearly broke, so they decided to go for it.

  They also needed a name. Many names were suggested by the many members of the group, some were classical, others downright obscene. Frank finally came up with a perfect name, it was a symbol that was on his uncle's mech when he was a mechwarrior with the Fighting Urakhai mercenary unit; an image of a white hand on a black shield. Frank presented his idea to the group and they enthusiastically supported the new name for their revolutionary order- the White Hand. Soon they would be known and feared throughout the Federated Suns, perhaps, throughout the whole Inner-Sphere someday as well. 

  Mr. Peach's lamented thoughts were quickly extinguished when he heard a commotion across the main hallway. Mr. Black came in through an adjoining office and threw up his hands in exasperation. Something was clearly bothering him and he waved his machine pistol around like an angry child. A number of hostages screamed and shrieked in panic when he waved his gun at them.

  "They are delaying us!" Mr. Black shouted to no one in particular. "We were supposed to be outta here by now with our crates of drugs and they say the shipment has been delayed! Do they think we are idiots?"

  With those words, Mr. Black grabbed a terrified young woman from the floor and pointed his gun at her. She wailed like a banshee and tried to look away from her impending death.

  "No!" Mr. Peach shouted as he ran across the room and tried to pull the woman away from Mr. Black but their leader quickly kicked him in the groin that sent him reeling to the floor.

  "Do not interfere with me again." Mr. Black hissed at his fallen comrade before addressing the rest of the room. "We are not here to harm anyone! All we want is the latest shipment of the medicinal drugs that Vinson Pharmaceuticals will be delivering to the Davion military instead of the ones who really need it, the people! We of the White Hand are the people! All we want is the resignation of the entire feudal command structure of the Great Houses and there will be peace among us all!"

  "Can't you all see?" Mr. Black continued his tirade. "All the causes of war and misery are because of these accursed feudal lords and their war machines! Yet who suffers the most in any war? It is we, the civilians! They will only rule over us if we let them. All we want is an equal distribution of medicines, food and the essentials of life; but no, they will have it earmarked for the military if they have their way! But this time we won't let them! We, the White Hand, we the people won't let them!"

  The hostages responded with incredulous looks on their teary-eyed, weary faces.

  Mr. Brown dragged his semi-conscious brother back into the storeroom. After partially removing his mask, Mr. Brown could see a slight bruise on Mr. Peach's face but otherwise he seemed okay.

  "Dammit. I told you to stay out of his way." Mr. Brown said.

  "I'm sorry, Ray. I thought he was gonna kill her." Mr. Peach sobbed.

  "You stupid frakhead. You will get us all killed." His brother was bitter with both him and their leader now. "And you said my name again! Damn you!"

  As the two brothers argued, they did not notice a small wire jutting out from the ventilation shaft above them. The wire was in fact a fiber-optic tube connected to a vid-camera. The operator was situated above the room, hidden inside the crawlspace. He was completely covered in a streamlined, camouflaged stealth suit and had red-tinted night vision goggles over his eyes, which gave him the appearance of an otherworldly creature. A 10mm Blacklight sub-machinegun, the weapon of choice for Wolf's Dragoons infamous 7th Kommando units, was slung over his shoulder.

  The black suited operator spoke into his throat mike. "Sliver to Camelot, come in, over."

  "This is Camelot, reading you." Came the reply from his scrambled radio.

  "I spot two hostiles that just entered the south storeroom. They are arguing with each other and one looks slightly injured."

  "Roger that, Sliver. I confirm two hostiles in your area. That brings the number of total hostiles within the building at ten; four at the main room, two where you are, two more at the south stairwell and two watching the lobby elevators. Stand by." With that, the line went dead.

  Major Dominic Durant depressed the microphone button and turned to face the Black Widow. "Okay, looks like we covered all the rooms, we are good to go." 

  With those words, the rest of the staff in the control room went silent, waiting for their commander to speak.

  Natasha Kerensky strode over to where the virtual map was and punched in the coordinates for all hostiles within the building. In a matter of seconds, their last known positions would be fed into the noteputers of the ground forces as well as the uplinked battlemechs of the Wolf Spider lance. All was ready.

  "At my command, prepare to execute." The Black Widow spoke into her throat mike. "Three. Two. One. Now. Execute."

  Several blocks away, two identical 100-ton metallic monsters were having their way at the entrance of the massive Vinson Pharmaceutical headquarters in downtown Kiverson City. Only a few minutes before, the entrance to the main building had a guardhouse as well as chain-linked fences, now all that was left of the security post was a black hole in the ground and the fence was all but a memory. Several cars had been smashed flat into the pavement along with some of their occupants. The streets within the entire block had by now been deserted, those that could have left fled to distant parts of the city while those who couldn't cowered in their respective offices in nearby buildings, waiting for help to arrive.

  Kiverson City's small police force scrambled to the best of their ability but it was not enough. Several police cars as well as their single APC had been virtually ripped apart into tiny fragments as they ran headlong into two assault-class BattleMechs when they responded to a report of armed men that were spotted at the entrance of the pharmaceutical building just minutes before. The few surviving police officers were several blocks away, attempting to restrict traffic and foolhardy onlookers from venturing into the avenue of death. They had tears in their eyes, grieving for their dead colleagues as well as fuming in frustration at their helplessness.

  "Come on you mothers! You want some more?" Mr. Gold said as he toggled the 'Mech's loudspeakers to their maximum volume, hoping that the entire city would hear.

  "Goldie, cool it." Mr. Blue cut in on a private channel from his own mech.

  But Mr. Gold would not be dissuaded as he drove his 100-ton _Fafnir_ into the middle of the now deserted street. "Come on, send more cops! I dare you, you mothers!" He screamed. "I'll kill every one of you guys! You think just because you got a gun and a badge you think you're the toughest bastards on the planet? Well, come on and prove it, you pigs!"

  Mr. Blue grimaced as his own identical _Fafnir_ strode onto the street, away from the cover of the pharmaceutical building, to support his comrade. "Goldie, get back into the compound so I can cover you, you're too exposed out there." Mr. Blue said as he continued to use the private comm. link to Mr. Gold.

  "What the hell for?" Mr. Gold answered back using the private communications link, perhaps he still had some sense left in him after all. "These cops ain't got anything that can stand up against us. We can do whatever we want."

  Mr. Blue settled back into his pilot's chair. His partner was right; the planet had no BattleMechs. But nonetheless, he needed to reason with Mr. Gold before his old friend went over the edge. He could understand Mr. Gold's hostility to authority figures; after all, they had been beaten up multiple times by these very same cops when they had participated in countless demonstrations against the ruling elite. But being in control was one thing, being bloodthirsty and killing for fun was something else, he thought.

  "Just remember, we will have to abandon these 'Mechs once we make the getaway so don't get too comfy in there." Mr. Blue said as he eased his _Fafnir_ closer to the pharmaceutical entrance.

  "I ain't leavin." Mr. Gold whispered into his neurohelmet's microphone. He had already made up his mind the moment he strapped himself into the stolen BattleMech. All his life, he had been beaten up by everyone, from school bullies to cops and he was sick of it all. Now he had the power to do whatever he wanted and he was not going to relinquish that; they would have to pry his dead body from the cockpit before that would happen. It would take an awful lot of force from this pacifist world to bring him down; he would take a lot of people with him. He hoped that he could kill as many lawyers as cops; he hated lawyers almost as much ever since they used their way with words to strip him from his parents and his inheritance. Everyone who ever hurt him was going to pay today.

  "What? What the hell are you talking about?" Mr. Blue said incredulously as a warning beep came onto his targeting computer.

  As if on cue, a large black shape strode onto the opposite end of the street, its massive contours painted entirely in black, its grinning skull-like head seemed to foretell an imminent doom upon them both. Mr. Blue instantly recognized the model; it was a _Pillager_, a 100-ton assault 'Mech that harkened back to the days of the first Star League. As both _Fafnir_ pilots sat frozen in their cockpit seats, their minds seemingly unable to accept the fact that there were other BattleMechs on the planet besides their own, the _Pillager_ instantly fired its twin gauss cannons, splaying chunks of armor from the front torsos of Mr. Gold's _Fafnir_.

  "Blue to Mr. Black, we have enemy 'Mechs in sight!" Mr. Blue screamed into his comm. link. After waiting for a minute that seemed like a century for the reply, he realized that he was not getting a link with his friends inside the building; all was static.

  "You want me? Come get some!" Mr. Gold screamed into the loudspeakers as he triggered his 'Mech's dual heavy gauss cannons. The _Fafnir_ was nothing more than a rectangular box perched on ostrich-like legs, it was a weapons platform designed around a pair of heavy gauss cannons, a larger and more devastating version of the standard gauss cannon. Able to propel a massive 220mm solid slug of metal at hypersonic speeds, the heavy gauss cannon was considered to be the ultimate in Inner-Sphere BattleMech weaponry, a pair of them could obliterate anything in its path.

  But then again, firing at a target and hitting it were two entirely different matters. Mr. Gold cursed in frustration as the first massive gauss shell missed the _Pillager_ by several meters to the right and the second slug made a near-miss which impacted into a nearby building, sending chunks of concrete and steel into the deserted streets. The _Pillager_ began to sidestep into an intersecting street as it fired its extended-range large laser at Mr. Gold, melting off more of his _Fafnir's_ armor as the lethal, reddish beam found its mark.

  "You're gonna die slow for that!" Mr. Gold hissed as he pushed his 'Mech's throttle to maximum. With a sudden lurch, the _Fafnir_ lunged forward, as fast as its bulky back-canted legs could take it, running across the avenue so that it could catch up to the fleeing enemy.

  "Goldie, wait!" Mr. Blue screamed into his mike but to no avail, Mr. Gold's bloodlust was fully realized as his friend's _Fafnir_ kept moving farther away from him. Within a split-second, Mr. Blue realized that he had two choices; he could either follow Mr. Gold's _Fafnir_ in order to provide support for his friend, or he could stay and somehow try to link up with his other friends inside the building to stay on the defensive and hope for the best. But Mr. Blue also realized that his associates inside might already be dead because of the static and so he pooled his logic into the one choice- fight to the end. With silent determination, he too opened up his 'Mech's throttle and proceeded to follow Mr. Gold down the street.    

  Inside the headquarters of Vinson Pharmaceuticals, Mr. Grey was the first to notice that something was amiss when the communicator he carried with him to maintain a link with the 'Mech support outside just went dead. At first he thought it was just the batteries, so he removed the safety catch and peered into the unit until he realized that he slapped on a fresh power source just two days before. As he walked over towards the main hallway to where Mr. Black and the hostages were, he heard a strange clanking noise on the locked steel door just behind the emergency stairwell. As he pressed his ear to try to determine the cause, a shaped charge blew out into the corridor where he was standing, completely demolishing the door as well as driving multiple fragments of steel into his head and sides. As his mangled corpse flew back into a bloody heap, strange figures began pouring through the door, their stealth suits partially obscuring their forms as the artificial lighting inside the building fused out, plunging everything into darkness.

  Everyone in the main hallway froze when two loud explosions came from the adjoining corridors. Before anyone could react, the entire structure then disappeared into blackness as the electrical circuit was cut off. Several of the hostage takers readied their weapons, reacting with uncharacteristic flair despite their lack of training, hoping to find something to shoot at but to no avail, since they couldn't see anything.

  As the commandos made their way into the main hallway by the use of their night-vision goggles, they instantly threw flashbang stun grenades into the room, compounding the hostage takers dilemma by deafening and blinding them at the same time. The red-tinted night vision goggles of the commandos instantly compensated for the blinding light of the flashbangs by shielding their eyes and then reverting back to light-intensifier mode as soon as the flash ended. The commandos' stealth suits were also equipped with protective ear covers that lessened the effects of the stun grenades somewhat. The hostage takers had no such protection and all were practically stunned for a few, vital seconds.

  When an operator trains for hostage rescue situations, quick thinking and split-second timing is the key to causing maximum devastation to the hostage takers and minimal collateral damage to civilians. Upon venturing into a room full of hostages and hostiles, the first rule of thumb is that if he is standing, it probably means that he is a hostage taker due to the fact that terrorists usually instruct their hostages to sit or lie down, thereby keeping them in control. The second rule is that the operator never looks at faces when he assaults a roomful of hostages, he keeps his eyes at people's hands; if the operator can see that one is cradling something that is black and bulky in their arms, he is trained to shoot immediately because it would usually indicate that someone is carrying a weapon of some sort, and hostages would never be allowed to carry that.                                                                                                                                                         

  The third rule in commando training is, when you shoot; go for headshots. 

Because of this rule, only top marksmen ever get eligible for counter-terrorist instruction. Some hostages that day later recounted that the commandos who came in to rescue them fired their silenced weapons with such accuracy that the only things they could hear was the pulpy sound of heads being blown apart.

  As Mr. Gold's _Fafnir_ finally rounded the corner to get at the _Pillager_, he noticed the black-painted enemy 'Mech moving away into another intersection just as he triggered his heavy gauss cannons. The buildings beside the retreating _Pillager_ were gouged by massive shells that shattered concrete and splintered steel, as the massive slugs tore through them in another failed attempt to connect with the enemy. With his temperament bordering on complete frustration, Mr. Gold followed into another city intersection in pursuit, he felt that all he needed were a few clean hits and his quarry would be a pile of metal and debris.

  But as he moved into another street to face the _Pillager_, the black enemy 'Mech quickly activated its jump jets to soar over his left flank. As Mr. Gold reacted by twisting his _Fafnir's_ torsos to track the _Pillager_, his 'Mech turned just in time to see an all-black _Axman_ heavy 'Mech get to within point-blank range at his left side.

  "Say hello to my little friend!" Johnny Gundam said as he swung the _Axman's_ hatchet down onto the _Fafnir's_ head, cleaving the cockpit in one fell swoop. The massive 100-ton assault 'Mech instantly lost control of its gyros as it toppled on its right side, sending large pieces of concrete and asphalt into the air when it landed with a loud crash onto the street.

  Just as the _Pillager_ settled down beside the _Axman_, the second _Fafnir_ ran headlong into the street. 

  "Johnny! Look out!" Stilicho Jones shouted to his ally as he triggered his jump jets in reaction to the massive weapons being aimed at their direction. The _Pillager_ shot straight up into the air as Mr. Blue sighted his weapons.

  "What?" Johnny Gundam exclaimed as he was completely surprised by the sudden appearance of the second _Fafnir_. His training and experience partially saved him as he was able to twist his 'Mech's torso towards the side as the _Fafnir's_ heavy gauss cannons opened fire.

  Although the slugs of the heavy gauss cannons were less effective over extended ranges due to the fact that their massive shells tended to break up over longer distances, at close range they were the most devastating weapons ever built; the huge 220mm metallic slugs tore into the _Axman's_ side, ripping off its right arm and doing tremendous damage across its sides as the heavy 'Mech's armor was shredded.

  As Johnny Gundam struggled to regain control over his stricken 'Mech, Stilicho's _Pillager_ landed beside the _Fafnir_ and began punching it with its claw-like hands. Mr. Blue's 'Mech did not have any arms to speak of and so he tried to rotate his _Fafnir's_ torso once again in order to bring his weapons to bear but Stilicho slammed his _Pillager_ into it, pinning the _Fafnir_ along the walls of a nearby building.

  "Johnny, get up!" Stilicho screamed into his neurohelmet's headset as he tried his best to keep the _Fafnir_ pinned to its side but Mr. Blue's 'Mech was slowly ripping itself free, tearing off chunks of the adjoining building as the _Fafnir_ struggled to get out. 

  Gundam shook his head for a few seconds as he tried to get his bearings straight. He quickly deactivated the whining alarms in his cockpit so that he could concentrate on the task at hand. By sheer skill, he willed his _Axman_ back up to its feet as he checked his load-out status. He could see that his 'Mech's right arm was sheared off with the hatchet along with it and he took some internal damage to his gyros, thankfully there was no ammunition breach or else he wouldn't be alive to be even doing these things now. With grim determination, Gundam's mech picked up the fallen hatchet with the other arm and readied it.

  As the _Axman_ slowly turned towards the other two 'Mechs, Gundam could see that both the _Pillager_ and the enemy _Fafnir_ were shooting their medium lasers wildly at each other. The _Fafnir_ was pinned to its side onto a building and so could not fire its forward facing heavy gauss cannons and the _Pillager's_ main weapons were too close to do any good; even the standard gauss cannon slug had to travel a short distance to be effective.

  "Enough of this." Gundam mumbled as he swung his 'Mech's hatchet at the pinned _Fafnir_. Within several minutes of hacking, Stilicho's _Pillager_ backed off as chunks of machinery and metal fell onto the street. By then all that was left of the enemy _Fafnir_ was a carcass of wires and scrap metal; the 'Mech's myomers had burst at their seams, the cut musculature and oozing lubricants gave it the effect of a mutilated steel behemoth. The panorama resembled a murder scene of titanic proportions.

  "Jesus, that was close." Stilicho muttered under his breath.

  "You can say that again." Gundam added.

  "Jesus, that was close." Stilicho repeated.

  "Shut up!" 

  When the commandos finally finished their sweep of the entire building, the Monk surveyed the carnage in the hallway. Now that the lights had been turned back on, the hostages were being escorted out of the building, leaving only the dead bodies of terrorists strewn across the floor, pieces of their brains mingled with blood and excrement as some of their bowels emptied upon the moment of death.

  "I always find it weird how people tend to do strange things even when they are already dead." Jimmy Clavell said as he walked over to the Monk while slipping off his night vision goggles and headgear. The former Wolf's Dragoon had just ventured out of the storage room after putting several 10mm slugs into the heads of two terrorists that he found there when he smashed through the ventilation shaft after the lights went out.

  "In what way?" The Monk said as he safetied his sub-machinegun and then slung it over his shoulder.

  "Oh, just that people's bowels tend to open up when you gutshot them or when you hear someone's death-rattle when their final breaths leave their lungs, the involuntary stuff, you know." Clavell mused.

  "I usually don't think of things like that. It's a job, nothing more." The Monk said without a trace of emotion.

  "Yeah, I guess it is." Clavell smiled. "These fools were just a bunch of rich kids trying to be terrorists; what a waste."

  "Waste?"

  "Yeah, a waste of my talents. I want to go up against real professionals, not a bunch of rank amateurs." Clavell said.

  "Be careful what you wish for, it might come true." The Monk answered.

  "Sure hope so." Clavell concluded. "Anyway, this pretty much spells the end of the White Hand terrorist network."

  "I wouldn't be too sure about that."

  "What do you mean?" Clavell asked.

  "Nothing ever ends." The Monk said as he started walking out of the hallway.

  Clavell concluded that there were times when the Monk would just scare him silly.


	8. VII Past

_Strana Mechty, Winter Past, 2989._

  Winter had started early and the cadets could feel the cold wind seeping into their teenage bodies even though they were all suited up in thermal body suits and windbreakers. The gravel gave a solid crunch as they walked over it with their climbing shoes as they headed to the base of the spire. It was early morning, and the sun had yet to fully emerge from the horizon but the time honored tradition had always been to start just before first light.  

  It was both a contest and a ritual, to climb the spire at the onset of their last winter as wolflings. Countless other _sibkos_ had done it for the past century and the first team to ascend to the summit would be treated with the utmost respect and reverence. Not all expected to even make it past the upper cliff, seventy meters up from the base of the spire. It was an unspoken agreement that the ones who gave up would either stay were they were, offering support to the climbers that could continue on upwards or that they would make their way back to the base and prepare the celebrations that would mark the first team as victors.

  Jutting out over a hundred meters high, the spire was an object of respect and intimidation. It was a solid tower of crumbling rock and ice that was visible from the south of the Clan enclave. Senior wolflings both dreaded and dreamt for the day that they would finally get a chance to climb it. Countless tales of heroism and tragedy from previous _sibkos_ only added to the spire's mystique. It was said that Nicholas Kerensky himself was the first to climb to the top of the peak when it was discovered during the preliminary explorations of the planet. By then, the spire had already become a legend to the boys and girls and all were eager for the challenge.

  That the unstable rock face and the constant icing of it in wintertime only added to the danger, quite a number of young climbers had already fallen to their deaths over the past century due to the treacherous conditions of the face. The top flange presented a formidable final obstacle for it was flattened by the constant howling winds and overlapped towards the edges, like a button at the back of a pinhead. This created a very tricky situation for would-be climbers because the final ascent to the top meant that the overhang would make it nearly vertical, with almost no chance for a steady grip. For the past two decades, each successive batch of wolflings had failed to make it to the top and these newest cadets were eager to break the curse.  

  The entire batch had woken before dawn and silently crept out of their domiciles to make the mile-long trek on foot; their instructors had forbidden them to climb the spire but it was the unspoken rule to break that directive and get at the peak before they were discovered. In addition to their thermal clothing, each climber had twenty meters of rope, hammer, pitons and snap rings with which to keep them from falling off should they ever lose their grip. Several cadets even managed to scrounge some food for an impromptu breakfast but they had vomited it out as soon as they got to the base of the spire; the peak was even more intimidating from their new vantage point. The intelligent ones didn't bother with food at that moment; chewable energy bars would give them needed sustenance during the climb and if they succeeded, feasting would come later.

  It was now over a year since the freeborn and trueborn _sibkos_ were merged and two distinct camps within the batch had manifested itself. The trueborn clique was lead by three feisty young women, Anastasia, Natasha and Katya. The three were often called the Furies because of their extreme arrogance and aggressiveness that were directed at the freeborn members of the _sibko_. But the freebirthed boys and girls wouldn't be intimidated either and tended to band together for mutual protection against the predations of the trueborns. Even though they were outnumbered, two boys, the innovative Jaime and the rock-steady Travis aptly led the freeborns. Sooner or later, it would come to a head as to when the single leader of the batch would be chosen. Anastasia had spelled out the terms of the contest, whoever reached the summit first would be in the front running for the leadership position of the _sibko_.

  As they began to rope up, several cadets already began to get cold feet and instead elected to stay at the base camp to act as support. The other climbers did not stigmatize them in any way for they would be needed in case an accident happened. A small group of freebirth _sibkin_ from a younger batch had secretly been flown in by helicopter to the top of the summit the night before and would serve as a failsafe just in case some of the climbers would be foolhardy enough to get that far. The team at the top had uncoiled ropes down along the edge of the summit so that the climbers would snap onto them in order to be used as an emergency line should anyone slip off the face during the final ascent.

  Anastasia, Natasha and Katya roped up together; they would climb as a team of three. Being the most aggressive, Anastasia would lead, followed by the tactician Natasha while Katya would bring up the rear; should Anastasia ever tire, the more precise Natasha would then take over the lead. At the other side of the base, Joshua and Travis roped up; they would take turns leading their way up to the summit. The other cadets watched the opposing teams with trepidation, everyone knew it would come down to either one as far as to who would make it to the summit.

  As the sun began to finally break over the horizon, the climbers started in earnest. Anastasia threw herself onto the rock face with reckless abandon as she clambered up as fast as she could, only to be tugged back tight as Natasha cautioned her to slow down in order for them to hammer in the pitons that would serve as their lifeline should a slip occur. Joshua and Travis alternatively climbed and hammered in their pitons in a parallel fashion, making very fast progress.

  Several hours passed into midmorning as the teams battled their way upwards, the cold wind sapping their strength while the iced-over rock posed a formidable challenge to their climbing skills. Within a few hours, over half the teams already gave up and some began to rappel back down to the base of the spire.

  Joshua tried to get some life into his frozen arms by exercising them; he was cold and tired from spending the night on the summit. He had volunteered along with two other boys from his _sibko_ to help with the final climb should it ever come to that. But knowing that his older brother Jaime was one of the teams vying for the top, Joshua knew he had to be in on the action, no matter what.

  A light tap on his shoulder brought him back to his senses. Joshua turned and saw his friend Cranston unpacking a flask from his backpack.

  "What have you got there?" Joshua asked.

  Cranston smiled as he took a sip and then handed the flask over to Joshua. "Just a little something to help us get warm. I stole this from the officer's mess a few weeks ago; might come in handy now."

  Joshua took a sip and nearly spat it out. "It is an alcoholic beverage. This is forbidden to us."

  "Brandy, to be exact; the flask that it is being carried in even dates back from the Star League era." Cranston laughed. "Why should it be forbidden to us? Just because of our age? Are we not warriors too?"

  The other boy had walked over after inspecting the ropes and took a swig at the flask of brandy as well. "Cranston, make sure you hide it before our instructors notice it." He said.

 "I definitely will, Chayam. I have many stashes all over the enclave; this summit shall be my newest stash." Cranston said to the other boy.

  "Quiet!" Joshua interrupted them as he ran over to the edge of the summit.  "I hear something."

  As he looked over the edge, he noticed that the three girls had already passed the upper cliff and were rapidly scrambling upwards to where the safety lines had been prepared for the final ascent. Joshua frowned but nevertheless felt a rush of excitement that gave new life to his cold and tired body. Hoping that his brother's team was not far behind, the boy quickly scampered over to the opposite side and looked down as well. Sure enough, Jaime and Travis had bypassed the upper cliff as well and were getting close to the ropes that they had set on that side.

  "Jaime, Hurry! The Furies are roping up!" Joshua shouted down towards his brother.

  The boy's shout echoed on down the spire and was heard by Anastasia as well. With a snarl, the red-haired teenager tied the summit rope using a climber's knot onto her harness and began to scramble upwards, taking more risks as she grabbed handholds one after the other without testing them for stability first. Just as she grabbed onto a jutting rock close to the beginning of the top flange, the large stone instantly came loose as she placed her weight on it. With remarkable agility, Anastasia quickly grabbed onto another handhold with her other arm just in time. It was a very near thing for she nearly would have fallen off along with the small boulder. Wiping her sweating forehead with relief, she quickly scrambled for the final ascent.

  Natasha was getting extremely frustrated; she had to uncoil the full length of her rope in order to let Anastasia get well ahead of them. Being more careful than her leading sister, Natasha hoped that there would be no accidents; this was a dangerous climb and she really didn't care too much about Clan honor at this point. What mattered to her was everyone's survival. As she pondered these disturbing thoughts, Natasha saw a looming shape dropping towards her. Within a split second, she instantly hugged the cliff face as the small boulder dropped past her, narrowly missing her head by a few scant inches.

  "Katya! Look out!" Natasha screamed down at her third sister who was bringing up the rear.

  Her sister Katya was too busy disengaging a snap ring from an embedded piton on the cliff face when she heard Natasha's warning. The small boulder hit her squarely on the top of her helmet and cracked it before continuing down to the ground. The impact instantly stunned the blond teenager and she lost her grip on the spire as she fell off.

  Natasha instantly saw everything but was in no position to prevent what had just happened. As she saw her sister careen off the face of the spire she could hear the pitons being jarred loose beneath her as Katya's lifeline began to place tremendous pressure on the pitons that she hammered in just minutes before. Natasha knew that the velocity of her sister's fall along with the slippery conditions of the spire might just send them both tumbling down. With grim determination, Natasha grabbed onto the strongest handholds she could find and braced her body just as the last piton beneath her snapped loose from the intense weight and speed.

  Just as Anastasia began to scramble upwards beneath the top flange, she instantly lost any slack on her lower line. The red-haired twin of Natasha cursed at the thought that her more timid sisters were slowing her down again.

  Without looking down, Anastasia shouted a curse directed to her sisters. "Victory is in our grasp, I need some slack on the rope!"

  Natasha had wanted to scream for help to her leading sister but the intense pressure on her harness had sucked out all the air from her lungs as she gasped for minute breaths of oxygen. Katya's limp form continued to dangle underneath her as the lifeline embedded itself onto her sister's body. Natasha's muscles throbbed with intense pain as she courageously held on with all her might onto the cliff face. Her palms had now been scrapped raw when her gloves were shredded against the sharp ice and rock; crimson drops of blood flowed down her forearms. Natasha felt her knees buckling from the intense weight but she needed to hang on for as long as possible; if she fell off too, the single line would not be able to hold all three of them.

  Hearing Joshua's warning about her sisters, Anastasia finally looked down and gasped. She could see that Katya was dangling like a dead fly on a string of spider web while her other sister Natasha was bravely hanging on. At that moment she came to a decision.

  "Natasha, disengage your harness. Let her fall." Anastasia shouted to her.

  Despite the intense pain on her chest and limbs, Natasha felt a flash of anger at her twin sister. She was telling her to kill Katya just so that they could win the contest! With effort, Natasha shook her head violently and glared back at her twin with palpable hatred behind clenched teeth.

  "We can win this contest, I am nearly there." Anastasia continued her twisted reasoning. "We can rule over this _sibko_; just disengage your harness."

  Natasha did not respond and kept hanging on.

  "I will not allow my weaker siblings to prevent me from my victory." Anastasia sighed as she pulled out a knife from her jacket. "If you will not let go of Katya, then I must leave you here for now while I finish this climb." With those searing words, Anastasia began to cut the lifeline between them.

  "No!" Joshua shouted from the top of the summit as he and his friends started scrambling for the safety line.

  Natasha had had enough. Her twin sister was going to kill them both for the sake of glory. She would not let that happen.

  Anastasia screamed a curse as Natasha finally let go of her grip and plunged down as well. The sudden jerk made the knife slip off from Anastasia's hand as she too lost her grip on the top flange from the intense weight and fall of her two sisters. Now all three were dangling precariously below the summit as the three boys above held onto the safety line.

  Joshua's hands were bleeding from the grip on the rope as they struggled mightily to prevent the line from jarring loose and plunging the three girls to their deaths.

  "The line was not meant to hold this many." Chayam's voice was barely a peep as he too struggled to support the rope. It was like a brutal tug of war with three teenage boys against the almighty law of gravity.

  "Well, if we ever let go, we can save ourselves the trouble of having to take orders from those three witches." Cranston whispered through his teeth as he kept his grip on the line as well.

  "Shut up." Joshua hissed despite the pain.

  After a few minutes, Jaime had at last scrambled onto the top using a reverse tucking maneuver. After catching his breath, he helped his teammate Travis up onto the summit as well. As both boys looked around, they instantly saw the three younger teens with their backs on the ground, holding onto the safety harness with all their strength.

  With the help of the much older Jaime and Travis, all three sisters were finally hauled up onto the summit. Jaime could barely keep Natasha and Anastasia from attacking each other. Travis carefully examined the still unconscious Katya and concluded that she had a severe concussion from the blow on her head and would need immediate medical help.

  As a helicopter flew in order to evacuate them, Anastasia climbed aboard first and kept to herself; Natasha stayed with her sister Katya on the other side of the fuselage while Joshua sat beside his triumphant brother. Travis bellowed and hollered like a king to the pilots while sitting in the cockpit.

  "You have done well, Jaime. Congratulations." Both brothers shook each other's hands gingerly for both palms were scraped raw and still oozed blood.

  "I must congratulate you too, brother." Jaime said to his younger brother. "You helped to save three lives today."

  "_Aff_. It was part of our duty." Joshua smiled before glancing over to Natasha. "And I did not want to see her die."

  Jaime made a short laugh. His little brother was in love.


	9. VIII Present

_Torrance, Fall Present, 3067._

  "Did I tell you that I hate parties?" Natasha said as the limousine finally stopped in front of the estate.

  "Just about every other minute since you received the formal invitation, Captain." Dominic smiled as he opened the door and walked out into the gravel driveway. 

  The Black Widow, looking immaculate in a classical black dress, stepped out of the still open car door as well. "Lady Terenson wanted to thank me personally and I guess I could not refuse." Natasha said as she surveyed the imported granite steps leading into the main foyer of the mansion.

  "I'm sure you will enjoy this evening, come on." Dominic said as took her by the arm and led her up the steps. After giving their engraved invitations to the classically attired doorman, they ventured into the opulently decorated grand ballroom.

  The Terenson Estate was situated several miles from the outskirts of Kiverson City and was the home of the hereditary ruling nobles of the planet. Acres of lush, rolling hills highlighted the grounds in which a massive, thirty-bedroom mansion that was built using imported granite and sandstone from Terra over six hundred years ago. Stables containing thoroughbreds of the best breeds had won numerous riding competitions for the past two centuries as well as several small streams provided ample fish stocks and a private game reserve boasted large herds of deer and wild boar. The fortunes of the Terenson family had begun to wax and wane over the recent years and when the government of Torrance toyed with the idea of a direct democracy using the interweb just several decades ago, it looked to be the final nail in the coffin. But the politically astute Baroness Martha Terenson had decided to marry into their main political rivals, the Palatines. Both families were locked in a constant struggle over who would reign supreme as the preeminent house in Torrance but the threat of a looming socialist democracy erased all feuds and they began to ally themselves against this common threat. With the alliance of the Terenson-Palatines, they began to win back crucial seats in the democratic council and when their political maneuverings were able to prevent the FedCom Civil War from spilling into the planet, the people gratefully returned back to their feudal traditions, for the time being at least.

  Natasha could see that the grand ballroom was decorated in the French baroque style of the 18th century. Massive glass chandeliers were suspended on gold chains from the tall ceiling. The marble flooring gleaned with a meticulous shine. Grand portrait paintings adorned the wooden panels of the walls while classically costumed minstrels in the style of the royal courts of old strummed their violins and played their pianofortes.

  A golden-haired young man, dressed in nobleman's clothes, walked over and greeted her. "Captain Kerensky I presume? I'm John Palatine." He shook her hand.

  "We thank you for your invitation to this ball, Mr. Palatine." Natasha smiled. "How did you recognize me?"

  John smiled in return; his white teeth were perfect. "Your reputation precedes you, Captain. And not to mention that you are the only beautiful redhead in a roomful of powdered white wigs."

  Natasha laughed then gestured over to Dominic. "May I introduce you to Major Dominic Durant, SLDF Intelligence."

  "A pleasure, Major." John shook Dominic's hand. "Please, if you could come with me, my mother, the honorable Lady Terenson, would like to meet you both."

  As the three walked through a throng of guests dressed in wigs and fancy clothes of old Terra, they passed by a massive, sumptuous buffet table laid out on the marble patio. Imported braised beef from Galax, broiled venison, rack of lamb, roasted wild turkey, Palmyran boar, fresh Mara trout, steaming trays of vegetables, breads of all shapes and sizes, tureens of assorted soups, sauces and stews as well as cold lobster in aspic highlighted a grandiose, epicurean feast which was topped with an ice sculpture. A line was already forming there as well as another beside the open bar in which wine, champagne and all types of spirits from across the Inner-Sphere flowed freely from opened bottles. As they finally passed through the hungry crowd, they came upon an old woman in a dress of pure white snow; her face was a mass of wrinkles, but there was a fire in her eyes that belied an able mind. She quickly smiled and strode over to them; John quickly took her hand for support.

  "May I introduce my mother, Lady Martha Terenson, Baroness of Torrance."  John said. "Mother, this is Major Dominic Durant, SLDF Intelligence, and Captain Natasha Kerensky, Star League special forces. They were the ones who took care of that terrorist incident yesterday."

  "Major, the people of Torrance owe you a great debt." Lady Terenson said, and then she turned her eye to Natasha. "And especially to you as well, Captain Kerensky."

  "Glad to be of service, Lady Terenson." Dominic kissed her hand.

  "Please enjoy the party, Major Durant. I have heard of your exploits in SLDF Intelligence, there are some who say that you are the successor to General Galen Cox." Lady Terenson said.

  Dominic smiled. "You have well placed ears, Milady. But I have a long ways to go before I can even eclipse General Cox."

  "That is why I have been in power for so long here, shall we say." Lady Terenson laughed. "I made sure that we get only the best; when I heard there would be trouble here, I specifically asked for the Black Widow Company. It was expensive, but I can see that I had made the right decision."

  At that moment, there was a disorder near the entrance of the mansion. Due to the distance between the two rooms, only a commotion of great magnitude would be noticed by the large crowd in the main ballroom, but it was no ordinary uproar. One of the doormen, his collar torn off as well as nursing a split lip, rushed over to Lady Terenson's group.

  The usher was clearly shaken. "Milady, there is a problem."

  "What is it?" John asked.

  "One of the SLDF personnel is causing quite a disorder at the entrance, sir." The usher answered. "He has an invitation, but he ventured inside completely drunk and he has uninvited friends as well."

  "Let his friends in along with him, we can surely handle a few additional guests." Lady Terenson said.

  "But Milady, the two guests with him are women from the downtown area of Kiverson City. They are dressed rather scantily and are of questionable character." The usher pleaded.

  Natasha closed her eyes and sighed. Only one man would turn up stoned drunk at a formal party with prostitutes in his arms- "Casanova" Jimmy Clavell. Dominic sensed it too and came up with the same conclusion.

  "I'll handle this." Dominic started walking towards the foyer.

  "I'll go with you, you may need some help." John said as he followed Dominic.

  Natasha turned to face Lady Terenson. "I think it's better if I handle this. I believe that man causing the ruckus is a member of my unit."

  "Let them handle it, my dear." Lady Terenson smiled as she took Natasha by the arm and led her to a quiet place beside the patio. "I wanted to talk to you about a few things, anyway."

  "Oh?" Natasha was surprised. "About what?"

  "The reason why I arraigned for this party was to have a chat with you, my dear." Lady Terenson said as they looked out into the evening sky. Twin moons shone over the twilit horizon and bathed the grounds in a pale, incandescent light. "I have a friend in Solaris VII by the name of Loucynda Byrd, of the Solaris Council. She has spoken to me about you."

  "And what did she say?"

  "She is most curious about who and what you really are. Many rumors have abounded of the ghost of the Black Widow returning from the grave and such. I wanted to see it for myself if this was indeed true." Lady Terenson said.

  "Sometimes I myself wonder who I really am." Natasha mused. "I have serious gaps in my memory. I have no recollections of my childhood at all. I only remember things of the last few years; most of these memories are not good."

  "I understand, my dear." Lady Terenson said. "I'm not here to pry your past from you. Whether you are truly the reincarnation of the Black Widow, who knows? Another good friend of mine is Misha Auburn, an author of a great many books about the woman you closely resemble. We have had many chats about it."

  "And what do you think about who I truly am?" Natasha asked.

  "I can say that you bear an uncanny resemblance to the original Black Widow; both in appearance and in deeds. I sense great power within you. You are so much like her and yet, so different at the same time."

  "In what way am I different?" Natasha was truly curious now.

  "The original Black Widow was a woman of dark fates, my dear." Lady Terenson patted her cheek. "There are sayings that a man has but one destiny, and the destiny of the first Natasha Kerensky was to live and die in battle. Your outcome on the other hand, is an open one. I can say that if you truly are the Black Widow reborn, then the fates have given you a second chance, a new way to forge your own path across time rather than repeating the tragic events of your past life."

  "A second chance. If only I knew what to do with it." Natasha lamented.

  "That is up to you, my dear." Lady Terenson said. "The one advice I can give you is to hold on to your loved ones, there are a few that do truly love you, this I can see. It is their love for you that may yet turn the fates around."

  A group of sycophants then descended upon the two. Because of class etiquette, Lady Terenson could not turn down their request for a chat and so she strode along with them to a nearby table, leaving Natasha alone with her thoughts.

  The Black Widow leaned on the marble railing and sighed. Lady Terenson spoke from a wellspring of wisdom. Despite the fact that they had met only a few minutes before, the Baroness was a great judge of character, seemingly able to analyze her from a few short glances and a quick conversation. Natasha began to wonder if she could truly break away from her fate; the advice from Lady Terenson was cryptic at best, for it only served to heighten the enigma that she was. So many secrets, so little time to unlock them all. It was said that everyone had their own secret, a little piece of information that they keep only to themselves and never reveal it to anyone else; upon their death, that secret would remain hidden forever. Every man was entitled to their secret; but the Black Widow was a trove of secrets, within her mind lay the answer to all her questions and to her eventual future. Would she dare probe into herself to unlock those hidden memories? Would the revelations ultimately free her or destroy what was left of her humanity?  

  A light touch on her shoulder broke Natasha's train of thought. She turned around and saw a youth dressed in an old cavalryman's uniform, his light brown hair fluttering in the slight breeze; his energetic smile both infectious and reassuring.

  Natasha returned the youth's smile and kissed him on the cheek. "Kieran, how do you find the party so far?"

  "It's great, Nasty. Thanks for getting us some extra invitations. I've never been to a party like this before." Kieran's cheeks glowed bright red from her kiss. It was an alluring mixture of timidity and tenderness.

  Kieran McGavin was the orphaned grandson of Lloyd McGavin, the creator of the Draconis Combine's Nightstalker regiments. After Kieran's older sister was killed in the game world of Solaris VII, Natasha Kerensky found him along with his eight-year old brother, Duncan. Since then, the Black Widow unofficially adopted the two boys. Kieran went on to become a technician for the unit while Duncan was shipped off to the Wolf's Dragoons training school in Outreach.

  "So where is Ethan and the Monk?" Natasha said. "I had invitations made for them as well."

  Kieran shrugged his shoulders. "They decided not to come. Ethan said he was way too old for parties and the Monk said he didn't like going to them. He preferred to brush up on his mech's technical manuals."

  "I guess that's why we call him the Monk, he has only one passion in life- war."

  "Yeah, I guess so." Kieran said. "Nasty, I couldn't help but see you brooding again after you had a talk with that old lady. Is everything okay?"

  Natasha grinned. The boy always seemed to go out of his way to express his concern; it was one of his charms and enabled him to make friends with everyone in the unit. "Everything is fine, Kieran. If anything, that old lady opened my eyes to new possibilities."

  "Possibilities?"

  "Yes." Natasha said. "I've been thinking, maybe I have been somewhat grouchy to you lately. I want to make that up; we will be going on R and R very soon and I want to spend some time with you and Duncan again, just us."

  "Really?" Kieran's eyes lit up. "Just like old times?"

  "Just like old times. Lady Terenson said something about people who truly love you, I think I now know what she meant." Natasha laughed. She had found the answer; it was staring her right at the face. The original Black Widow never had a care for anyone, but with the two McGavin boys, she could truly believe that she was on the path of redemption. She had a family.

  "Oh Nasty, this is so wonderful." Kieran hugged her tightly. "Thank you."

  "My pleasure." Natasha said as she tried to twist away from Kieran's crushing bear hug; she almost tore her black dress which made her laugh even more as she was able to twist away and steal a glance around the area just in case someone might have thought that this wanton display of bliss to be too inappropriate. As her eyes looked down towards the grounds, she instantly froze in complete astonishment.

  Down below the lower balcony, in the manicured grounds of the large garden at the back of the mansion, Natasha saw the same young man that she had seen just a few days before. He was dressed like the other guests, in an ancient cuirassier's uniform but it was his face and precise movements that gave her a sense of déjà vu. He was strolling through the hedge maze, a silver chalice in his right hand; it looked like he was by himself.

  In a scant millisecond, Natasha's blissful demeanor changed into one driven by obsession. Her head began to pound as she began to sweat profusely, despite the cool nighttime air.

  "Nasty, what's wrong?" Kieran's face changed from happiness to concern as well.

  The Black Widow ignored him as she bounded over the railing and jumped down into the grounds. The drop was a good fifteen feet but Natasha was trained to break her fall as she switched to a running sprint when she landed just as the man strolled out of sight into the hedge maze. Natasha quickly followed.

  After hurrying through several twists and turns through the maze of leaves and vines, her search came up empty. Natasha stopped and caught her breath. Her heart was pounding at an unfathomable rate, the perspiration steamed from her body. As her body made a slight tremble from the loss of adrenaline, she heard a voice behind her.

  It was the voice of a man, sturdy yet harmonious. "The stars seem so beautiful tonight."

  As Natasha made a quick turn, she noticed the very man she sought was standing behind her, admiring the night sky. It was almost as if she just ran past him, never even knowing that he was there. For a few seconds that seemed like an eternity, she stood there, petrified by perplexity. Her senses told her that she had never seen him before yet she could recall vivid memories of knowing him in a most intimate fashion. The conflicting emotions and recollections tore the power of speech and logic from her body's control. For a brief history of time, the Black Widow became a perfect paradigm of indecision.

  After what seemed like hours, Natasha was at last, able to say something. "Who are you?" She said.

  "Joshua Pennington, Federated Suns MI-5. And you must be Captain Kerensky. Pleased to meet you." Joshua smiled.

  "H-how did you know my name?" Natasha could barely form the words in her mouth. She was still in a daze.

  "From your file, Captain. I was the case officer that handled the report on the White Hand terrorist network." Joshua said.

  "I'm sorry for overlooking that. I am just not feeling well." Natasha said as she kept trying to clear her mind. "But I have a distinct feeling that I met you before."

  "Really? Strange that I wouldn't remember one that is as beautiful as you."

  "Perhaps I was mistaken, but something inside of me is telling me that I have known you before." Natasha said. It was an intense feeling, as if her entire body was screaming out a message to her but she couldn't quite place what the meaning was. Her knees felt wobbly and she was having trouble staying on her feet.

  Joshua immediately saw her awkward stance and took her by the arm to hold her up. "Maybe it's just the weather that's making you sick. Would you like to talk about it? That may help you feel better."

  Natasha smiled at him. The moment he touched her, she felt as if she was somehow made whole again. It was as if a great void, which had existed within her, was now filled. Her body now felt exhilarated and serene, for the first time in her life.

  "I would like that." She said.

  As the two sat down on a stone bench in the middle of the hedge maze and started to converse, Kieran looked away. He had followed Natasha down onto the gardens and into the labyrinth of leaves, hoping to try and help her with whatever was bothering her but it seemed now that he was being completely overlooked, as if he did not matter in the scheme of things anymore.

  The young tech of the Black Widows walked back towards the mansion, tears streaming down his eyes.


	10. IX Past

_New Delos, Spring Past, 3015._

  There were times that words were no longer needed; feeling and touching were all that was required. When he had told her that he was staying behind to try and repair the rift between the Dragoons and Duke Anton Marik, she did not comment. They both knew that Anton's rebellion was in big trouble; loyalist forces had begun to close in on them from all sides and support had all but evaporated. All that stood between certain defeat were the discipline of the Dragoons and now with the open rift between Colonel Wolf and the self-styled Captain-General, that alliance would break and possibly destroy them all. They both did not want to get separated, by this time their fondness had grown to the point of sheer obsession but their honors of duty demanded that they fulfill their appointed roles to the last. That afternoon was all the time they had and they were determined to make the most of it.

  By the time that Joshua had finally stirred and returned to wakefulness, he had noticed that she had already got up and was staring out of the massive window that had dominated the bedroom. The afternoon sun made an outline of light along her naked, slender body. The effect rendered her somewhat iconic as the rays of light cast a fiery sheen on her red hair that had cascaded down her lithe shoulders. Joshua could not help but smile as he just remembered caressing her well-toned body not too long ago. Her form was a mixture of hard muscles and tender, feminine features. While her arms, stomach, legs and shoulders were hard and sinewy, her buttocks and breasts had retained their softness, which had added to her sexual appeal. A part of him took a mental photograph of her pose; he etched the scene into his memory, wanting so much to remember her this way forever, no matter what fate befell them.

  "What is it?" She asked without turning her head. She somehow knew he had woken.

  Joshua was still lying down; he propped his head up by leaning on one arm. "Nothing, Tasha. I was just admiring your naked pose."

  "You don't look so bad yourself." Natasha had at last turned her head and made a faint smile. Only Joshua and his brother Jaime ever called her by that name.

  "After what we've been doing all day?" Joshua smiled as he playfully lifted the white sheets and peered underneath it. "I'll be lucky if it doesn't fall off from sheer overuse."

  Natasha tilted her head back and giggled. Joshua was the only person that could do that to her, he was the only one who could make her laugh. After a few minutes however, she returned back to her somber mood and stared back out into the planet's serene landscape once more.

  Joshua immediately sensed the shift in the atmosphere of the room. He slipped out of the bed and walked over to where she was. Standing behind her, Joshua slipped his muscular arms across her body and hugged her. He could feel her immediate tension and consequent relaxation for her body initially resisted his touch by the tensing of her muscles. Within a few scant seconds however, the tenderness of her flesh had returned; he could feel the goose bumps on her skin as he caressed her, it was an obvious sign of pleasure and affection.

  "I have to stay here. You know that." Joshua whispered in her ear after nibbling on it.

  "I know." A trace of sadness was apparent in her voice. "But that doesn't mean I have to like it."

  "Nothing will happen. Anton and Jaime just had a disagreement. Things should flow back to normal very soon."

  "But what if it doesn't?" Natasha rested her head on his broad shoulders. "Oh Joshua, we've been through so much. I can't lose you now."

  "You won't lose me." Joshua's hand clasped hers and held on tight. "No matter what happens, I'll be with you always."

  Despite its tranquil backdrop, New Delos was the center of the rebellion movement against Janos Marik. It was here that his brother Anton declared himself the new Captain-General of the Free Worlds League. Calling his brother Janos a mad tyrant, Anton made a secret alliance with The Capellan Confederation to secure his flank and procured the services of the Dragoons as the lynchpin of his forces. After initial successes however, Anton's call for a general rebellion all across the League ultimately fell on deaf ears while the loyalist forces began to mobilize against him. By the beginning of the year the stalemate had been broken as the momentum shifted to Janos and his loyalist troops. The pressure was now on Wolf's Dragoons to stem the tide but the odds were slowly turning against them. Orders from Duke Anton to splinter the Dragoons into smaller units was vehemently disagreed upon by Colonel Jaime Wolf and the latter had stormed out of the meeting just yesterday. It was clear that Anton's differences with the Dragoons had created a serious rift within the rebellion itself. Joshua did his best to calm both Anton and his brother down, but it was clear that more work was required to heal the widening chasm between them.

  One major piece of information that the entire Inner-Sphere did not know was that the Dragoons were actually a scouting unit sent by the Clans. Five regiments of freebirth warriors from the Wolf Clan posed as mercenaries with the intention of learning the strengths of each Successor State for the eventuality of an all-out invasion. Along with his brother Jaime, Joshua was given the surname Wolf and both were designated co-leaders of the unit. Natasha Kerensky was one of the few trueborn warriors to be part of the contingent but had nearly died when her unit was betrayed to the Loyalist forces by a mysterious mercenary called the Bounty Hunter. After her recovery from that incident, she was placed in command of a new unit of misfits and malcontents within the Dragoons and the Black Widow Company was born. 

  Fifteen years away from the Clan homeworlds had a profound effect on some of the Dragoons. Emotions that were previously thought forbidden to the Clan way of life began to spring forth unabated due to lack of supervision and controls. Joshua had been mildly attracted to Natasha ever since their childhood days in Strana Mechty but it was considered disgraceful for a trueborn and freeborn to have nothing more than a casual relationship while under the watchful eye of Clan society. The separation from that rigid structure as well the insular nature within the Dragoons to not reveal their secrets to the Inner-Sphere made them more dependent on each other as a consequence. In time, relationships once thought alien and taboo had begun to manifest themselves in strange and exciting new behaviors. It was a new way of living for some of them, different paths of emotions that could be experienced.

  Natasha had always been close to the Wolf brothers; she and Jaime had been in the same _sibko_ together and Joshua had served under her during their time as warriors in the Wolves. The familiarity within them grew into attraction and affection as previously withheld feelings bubbled up to the surface. The stoic Jaime became a very close friend to her while the more lighthearted Joshua had aroused feelings within her that she had previously thought would not be possible. Natasha could no longer bear to be without either of them, to lose one would be an unfathomable tragedy, to lose both would be unthinkable.

  When Jaime chose a wife from one of the dependents no one was surprised. Without the supervision of the scientists, a freebirth was allowed to choose within his caste to raise a family in that tradition. Natasha, being one of the few trueborns, had initially resisted Joshua's playful advances towards her but as time went on, her own attraction to Jaime's younger brother began to grow on her as well. By the time of Anton's rebellion, Joshua had at last become her intimate lover. It was a new feeling for both of them, each had taken their emotions farther than they had ever thought possible. The feeling was both exhilarating and startling.

  Natasha felt something in her hand when Joshua clasped it. She quickly opened her palm to find a tuft of wolf fur. "What is this?" She said.

  Joshua smiled as he placed his hand behind hers and stroked her wrist. "It's an old charm I always carried with me; since I was a boy it gave me good luck, now I want you to have it."

  "If it gave you good luck then you should keep it." Natasha twisted her neck and kissed him on the cheek. "You will need all the luck in the galaxy you can get if you're dealing with Anton Marik."

  "Suit yourself, Tasha." Joshua ran his tongue along the back of her neck. It was her most sensitive spot. "You'll be sorry for not taking my offer."

  At that moment, Natasha could no longer find the words. She turned around and kissed Joshua before burying her head on his chest. Joshua continued to run his hands along her body that aroused Natasha even further and got her to temporarily forget her worries. With the constant touching and caressing becoming more intense, Natasha started nibbling first on his shoulder, and then continued on down to his chest, causing him to gasp and drop the tuft of fur. It was his sweet spot and she knew it, she knew every secret of his body.

  The Black Widow giggled as Joshua finally swept her off her feet and carried her back to the bed. There was really nothing more to be said between either of them for they had decided on other means to express their feelings for one another.


	11. X Present

_Torrance, Fall Present, 3067._

  Despite being surrounded by hundreds of other pedestrians, Kieran McGavin walked alone, keeping his thoughts to himself. A loud chime sounded from the public address system and a soothing female voice had announced the latest train having just arrived but he did not even notice it. Vast mosaics of tranquil scenes had been carefully laid along the cavernous walls of the underground station of Kiverson City so many centuries ago that it seemed more like a backdrop for a Byzantine church than a subway but still he paid it no mind. 

  Even with the climate controlled air-conditioning system that maintained a steady temperature that was installed back during the tranquil days of the first Star League gave him no comfort. Pain and indifference left a frosty chill in his air. Kieran occasionally saw couples with entwined hands, smiling and laughing as they passed him by and that made him all the more bitter. Would he himself ever find happiness? It was a basic human need yet it was so truly fleeting, so lamentably out of reach.

  Just a week ago, he thought he had nearly achieved it. During the party held at the Terenson Estate, Natasha Kerensky had at last opened up to him after so many months since she reconstituted the Black Widow Company. Kieran was but an orphan doing his best and scraping along, trying to take care of his younger brother Duncan. After his older sister Megan was killed by the rampage of the terrible Beast of Ishiyama just over a year ago, he felt so lost then, so alone. He had been driven to the depths of despair at that point and he thought that nothing could have been worse than that. Yet now, he seemed to once again relive the depths of his past.

  Kieran sighed as he passed by a girl his age, strumming an old wooden guitar and wearing beat up denims and a patchwork t-shirt that signified her bohemian wanderings. There was a worn-out old hat beside her, its brim upturned so as to catch an occasional penny from a not too indifferent passerby. He pulled out the last of his C-Bills and threw the whole wad into the hat. She immediately stopped picking at the strings and stared at him, an incredulous look in her blue eyes, as if she wasn't sure whether to thank him for the momentous donation or to curse him for placing fake bills into her hat. Kieran smiled faintly, then he turned his head and walked away. At least he made somebody happy tonight.

  With his hair slightly ruffled by the sudden swoosh of another incoming MAGLEV subway car, Kieran decided to get on this one. It would be the commuter train heading for the nearby city of Grover. At least he could spend the rest of the night at the station there, for Grover had a large ticketing terminal, with many benches where he could just sleep on all night. He didn't want to go back to their barracks on the outskirts of Kiverson City for a while; it hurt him too much to stay there.

  Ever since the Black Widow had met a mysterious young man that she discovered at that party, she seemed to ignore all her other duties. Every waking hour she now spent with him. Kieran had felt an overriding sense of loss when she focused all her attention on him, one Joshua Pennington. It seemed that Pennington was the case officer in the Federated Suns intelligence apparatus that alerted them to the machinations of the White Hand terrorist network. It seemed to have been love at first sight, thought Kieran. Was he now beginning to feel the bitter pangs of jealousy? Was all of his current angst just a smokescreen for his envy of Pennington? Why didn't he make the move and declare his love for Natasha when he had so many chances before?

  As he sat on the plastic seats while the MAGLEV train began to hum as it was staring to move, Kieran began to analyze the situation. No, he would not have ever made any move on Natasha anyway, he accepted her as a mentor and guardian and he felt that it would have been enough. But now that someone else had gotten her affections, he began to doubt himself. It was so convenient for historians to look at past events with the hindsight of the present, but because it was all unfolding in front of him, he hated it. But there was perhaps something else. It was that the whole affair between the Black Widow and Pennington all seemed too convenient, too planned. That was what bothered him.

  Kieran continued to brood on these thoughts as the train carried him into the nearby city of Grover.

  Several hundred kilometers away, similar thoughts had plagued the back of Ethan Lafitte's mind as he sat in his makeshift office in the base. Being the Senior Technician of the Black Widow Company made Ethan privy to each and everyone's problems. He acted as a kind of psychiatrist for the unit, always lending his knowledge and experience to the others. He was a former soldier after all, and that helped a lot.

  Earlier that morning, he had a talk with one of his junior techs, Kieran McGavin. The youth confided in him about his suspicions with the Federated Suns Intelligence officer who seemed to be spending a lot of off-duty time with their commander, Natasha Kerensky. At first Ethan just laughed it off and told Kieran that it was just a natural inclination to jealousy, for he knew how much the boy loved Natasha and looked up to her as both older sister and guardian. He thought that Kieran had nothing more than an adolescent crush on the Black Widow and those feelings were put to the test when she started seeing another. At first it all seemed as simple as that.

  But Ethan also considered himself an amateur historian. He had a love of the past and pivotal events that had shaped humanity for the last five thousand years. The old soldier always felt that the key to unlocking the problems of the present lay with the past. And it was the past that had begun to bother him.

  When he was first introduced to Joshua Pennington, Ethan thought he was a bright and charming young man, but something had picked the back of his mind the moment he saw his face. It was as if he had seen him before, not in person but he might have read about him before, Joshua had a face that seemed to have come out of a history book. Ethan wasn't quite sure but he seemed to remind him of someone.

  It was that thought that had bothered him and so Ethan was spending the late hours of the night in his office. When all the other techs had decided to call it a day and returned to their quarters, Ethan had decided to wrestle with the thing that was bothering him, even if it took all night to do it. His desk was cluttered with spare parts for BattleMechs and technical manuals were strewn about haphazardly so that it took him nearly half an hour to find the jack port on the nearby wall after rummaging through the assorted stuff so that he could uplink his noteputer to the interweb. As the Senior Tech, Ethan had priority and pass codes in order to link up with the intelligence databases of both the Star League and the Federated Suns. He even had friends in Wolf's Dragoons who had given him pass codes with which to uplink to Wolfnet if necessary.

  As he entered the pass codes, Ethan immediately began to scan the personnel files of some of the staff with FedSuns MI-5, the local counter-intelligence bureau. As he searched for Pennington's file, his noteputer went offline several times and slowed down to a crawl but he eventually was able to access them. The records seemed innocuous enough, there didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary. Ethan leaned back on his swivel chair and rubbed his eyes. It was nearly midnight now and still he had not gotten anywhere. Was it just a false suspicion?

  After getting up and stretching his tired arms, he went over and activated the coffee perculator. A few minutes later, with a steaming cup of coffee beside him on his desk, Ethan sat down again and began to think as he massaged his tired temples. The entire office had its lights shut down already and the only illumination was of his noteputer's monitor screen; the effect cast eerie shadows along the walls. Just as he was about to doze off into slumberland, Ethan sat up with a jerk. With rapid keystrokes, the retired MechWarrior surfed over to Wolfnet's historical database. As he began to go through the historical records of the first Black Widow Company, he was sure he was getting close. The answer was there; he could feel it.

     When he finally got to the historical picture galleries of the Dragoon personnel, he knew he was getting warmer. But it wasn't until he actually got to the personal dossiers of the Dragoon's command personnel that he finally sat back in shock. Staring back at him from the monitor was one of the few known official portraits of Joshua Wolf, the long-dead brother of the Dragoon's legendary commander, Jaime Wolf.

  Ethan was stunned as he stared at the virtual portrait. The resemblance was so uncanny that Joshua Pennington was practically a mirror image of the long dead co-leader of the Dragoons. But how could it be? How could a man that had clearly died be alive again? Was it all nothing but a coincidence or was there something more sinister at work here?

  He never once bothered to ask Natasha were she was truly from. All he knew of her was that she was the greatest soldier that he had ever seen in all his years of being in war and that she had a supernatural resemblance to the original Black Widow. He had once thought that it was all a trick of plastic surgery and that Natasha was nothing more than an admirer of the original but with this new revelation, the floodgates of history opened up all around him, drowning him in possibilities and unnatural congruencies.

  Ethan picked up his hand communicator from his desk and dialed Kieran's number. As it kept ringing, he hoped that the boy would answer. After all, if there was anyone who spent more time with Natasha than anyone else, it was Kieran. As the rings eventually stopped and a voice prompt for Kieran's messaging service went active, Ethan made his decision.

  "Kieran, this is Ethan Laffite." Ethan spoke into the message server, hoping that Kieran would play it back as soon as possible. "Call me back as soon as you can. You were right about Joshua Pennington."

  As soon as he hung up, Ethan immediately began to dial the Monk's number, he would have preferred letting Jimmy Clavell know about it first but the fool was probably spending a drunken night at Kiverson City's red-light district again, it would be better to call him in the morning when he was sober. Right after the first ring tone, Ethan's communicator went static.

  Ethan placed the comm. unit on his desk and started to rummage around for his toolkit. Perhaps the battery died, he thought. That little distraction left him completely unprepared as a garrote was slipped around his throat.

  The former veteran of the AFFC immediately let out a cry as the noose became tighter and tighter. The garrote was made of industrial strength piano wire and the increasingly sharp pain on his throat made it very difficult to speak and then later to breath as he began to black out from the pain. Ethan tried to struggle by whipping his arms around to try to get at the assailant but the man behind him was very strong as he drove down onto Ethan's back, using his full weight and keeping Ethan's face pinned down on top of the table.

  With a last desperate gasp, Ethan tried to grab a hold of a pen or a screwdriver, anything to use as a stabbing weapon to try to get the assailant to at least loosen the iron vise around his throat or just to even distract him for the sharp pain was becoming too unbearable. As the technical manuals and the noteputer fell off his desk with a loud crash and his arms thrashed around to find a weapon to use, the assailant kept at it.

  Ethan was at last able to get a hold of something but as he tried to grip it, he just couldn't find the strength as he finally blacked out from the pain and the surrounding darkness overwhelmed him. He wanted to fight on but his tired old body finally let him down. Within a few minutes, his form stopped twitching and bile began to ooze from his open mouth as his eyes went totally white.

  Joshua kept breathing heavily as he unwrapped the garrote from the dead man's throat and placed it back within the folds of his black clothing. He was lucky, in the last time that he had been in the temporary base of the Black Widows with Natasha, he made it a point of habit to place a Trojan program as well as a trace link on their interweb uplinks just in case someone began to probe too closely into his personal files. When someone did in fact began a scan of his records, the tracer program automatically pinpointed the location for him and he proceeded with all haste to eliminate the source. With luck, he would make it back to his quarters so as not to wake the sleeping Natasha who was sharing his bed with him this very night.

  As Joshua began to move the corpse in order to dispose of it, he couldn't help thinking that he could have killed the Black Widow at any time. For the past week, he had a multitude of chances but even then he just couldn't seem to bring himself to do it. Was the phenomenon beginning to have an effect on his mental conditioning? He hoped not. It was obvious that time was running out for him. He needed to perform the hit tomorrow or otherwise he wouldn't get another chance. The Black Widow Company was one of the units chosen to safeguard the delegations in the upcoming Star League conference in Tharkad, less than a month away. He needed to do something quickly.


	12. XI Past

_Strana Mechty, Winter Past, 2989._

  How could something that had started so promising end up so terribly?

  At one point in time, she seemed to have it all: ability, prestige, glory and an unassailable ambition that could destroy any obstacle in her path to ultimate power. Her instructors even considered her to be the greatest warrior since the mythical ilKhan Nicholas Kerensky donned his neurohelmet and climbed into his 'Mech to do battle with his enemies, they said. At one point, she was the most well-known _ristar_ of the _sibkos_, even Khan Kerlin Ward spoke of her during a recent gathering of Bloodnamed warriors. How all of this had come to pass now. How she had bitterly resented this new turn of events.

  Now she was considered just like everyone else in her _sibko_, just a typical warrior. How she had raged at this seeming unfairness, this strange twist of fate. She was born as a fusion of the greatest warriors in history and to be relegated to mediocrity was a colossal shame to her own heritage. She was supposed to be part of an ultimate lineage of soldiers that would carry through as the supreme conquerors, sculpting victories while striding through time. How this had all come to naught now.

  Anastasia always considered herself to be destined for greatness from the moment she could walk and think for herself. While others in her _sibko_ thought of honing their skills and toughening their bodies, she sought of ways to overcome each and every one of them. Those stronger than her, she made alliances with; those weaker than her, she remorselessly destroyed. In the end, she had created an alliance with her two strongest blood sisters, her virtual twin Natasha and the blond Katya. Together, they were an unstoppable force that could defeat all challengers to their utter supremacy. Anastasia could not wait until they were at last chosen as warriors, she was certain that once they had passed their trials of position, they would rule the Wolf Clan and soon, the entire Clans as well.

  But how cruel could the fates be, how pitiless their trials and tribulations could become. The moment that their batch was joined with a freeborn _sibko_, a changing of fortunes began. Despite the trueborns seeming superiority, the freeborn used unorthodox tactics to maintain a stability that Anastasia had thought was impossible. The freeborn would not play according to Clan rules and traditions, they were more dynamic in their tactics and overall thinking; this confused the trueborns, who were so used to overcoming problems in the traditional ways that it gave the Freebirths an edge in a number of trials until a balance of power was achieved. Of particular irritation to Anastasia was a freeborn _sibkin_ her own age who seemed to possess an extraordinary cunning as well as having great leadership qualities that overcame any physical limitations that he had, compared to his taller and stronger brethren. The boy's name was Jaime and Anastasia had a particular dislike for him that festered and ultimately erupted into open hatred.

  Equilibrium could not and would not be maintained for long, however. In her continuous quest to ultimately prevail against the freeborn leadership of Jaime, Anastasia openly declared that the first one to successfully climb the summit of the great spire would be the undisputed leader of the entire _sibko_. This seemingly foolproof plan backfired when Jaime became the first Freebirth ever to complete the climb and had beaten her as well. Her own sisters, Natasha and Katya, openly sided with the upstart Freebirth after she had tried to kill them in a vain attempt at winning the contest. Within a few scant hours, Anastasia metamorphisized from the next saKhan into just another member of the latest batch of wolflings that were preparing for warrior caste trials. The loss of prestige was a crushing blow to her once seemingly limitless ambition.

  Deep within her lurked a snarling wolf, waiting and biding its time before it could at last return to the pinnacle that it once towered upon. As time passed, her guiles and plots became even more insidious to the point that she knew there was but one choice, she would now kill in order to return to the glory she so craved.

  The workgroup had nearly finished the maintenance work on the boundaries of the Clan enclave. Strana Mechty's sun had begun to set over the horizon and the wind began to howl. A number of the junior _sibkin_ protested that they should be getting back to the base camp soon for they were not equipped to stay overnight in the rapidly freezing weather but Anastasia would not be influenced by their arguments. Instead she lashed out with her white baton, her symbol of authority over the younger cadets and quite a number of them endured short, vicious beatings, which left some with black and blue marks all over their bodies.

  Anastasia walked over to where Joshua and Cranston was. The two younger boys had tried to replace a malfunctioning boundary fence pole for almost half an hour but their lack of digging tools was hampering their progress. It also didn't help matters that Anastasia had confiscated their toolkits because they dared to give her dirty looks all during the afternoon.

  "Have you not completed your assigned work yet?" Anastasia shouted. "You _stravag_ dogs have yet to run diagnostic tests on two more poles which should have been done over an hour ago!"

  Joshua stopped his work and faced her. "If you will give us back our digging tools and diagnostic kits, we would have been finished a long time ago."

  A quick blow from Anastasia's open palm staggered Joshua as she hit him on his cheek. A red welt appeared on his temple but he kept his composure. He wasn't going to let her get the better of him by showing that he was weak.

  "I said no talking, did I not?" Anastasia said. "You Freebirths make me sick. You are so stupid that you cannot even follow simple instructions, _quiaff_?"  

  "You seem to hate us, Anastasia." Cranston said as he too stopped working and walked over beside Joshua. "You are jealous of us Freebirths because it was a Freebirth that beat you to the spire."

  Cranston immediately doubled over in pain as the red-haired teenager delivered a wicked kick to his groin. Before anyone else was able to react, Anastasia followed it with a blow to the back of the younger boy's head from her baton which sent him straight to the ground, lying on his side and groaning in agony.

  "No!" Joshua screamed as he saw Anastasia about to deliver another blow to his prone comrade. He quickly kicked the baton away from her. The half-meter long stick made of ultra high-density carbon fiber landed beside him as he saw the color drain from her face.

  "You scum!" Anastasia was livid with rage. "Pick up that baton and give it back to me!"

  Joshua said nothing as he stood his ground.

  "Did you realize what you just did?" Anastasia's grimace turned into a devious smile. "You have just assaulted a superior during a field exercise, you Freebirth _dezgra_."

  The younger boy's face turned to dismay. By fighting back against her, he had played right into her game. Assaulting a superior was grounds for court-martial or even worse, trial by combat. It was considered _dezgra_, a dishonorable action. Now he had to face immediate punishment.

  Anastasia turned to the other cadets that where gathering around them. "The rest of you, return back to the enclave." She ordered. "Now!"

  Not wanting to incur further wrath, the other cadets began walking away as the sun began to dip even further. Within a few minutes, only Anastasia and Joshua remained. Cranston was still lying on the ground, it seemed that he had lost consciousness from the pain. The slightly older woman began to pace around the rebellious lad.

  "I charge you with a capital offence on a superior commander." Anastasia said as she picked up her baton and kept circling around him. "Do you wish to invoke a Trial of Refusal?"

  "_Neg_." Joshua's voice was barely a whisper. He knew that if he dared to invoke that, Anastasia would declare a circle of equals right then and there. Knowing full well what she was up to, he realized she would make sure that it would be a battle to the death.

  "Then you shall be punished." Anastasia smiled as she stood behind him. "And as the superior in the field it shall be at my discretion, _quiaff_?"

  Before Joshua could respond, he felt a crushing blow at the base of his spine as Anastasia swung the baton at full force. The next thing he knew he was on his knees as the devastating pain overwhelmed him.

  "Get up." Anastasia ordered.

  As Joshua first got on one knee and then raised himself up after several seconds, he felt another blow, this time aimed at the back of his knees. Again he doubled over in agony. After a few seconds that seemed like hours, Joshua once again got up into a military stance. Almost immediately, another blow, this time directed on his shoulder, staggered him as he could barely maintain his balance because of the blow.

  "Had enough, freeborn scum?" Anastasia said.

  Joshua said nothing as he smiled back at her.

  It was a defiant gesture, one that only served to inflame Anastasia's temper as she ran up to him and swung her baton upwards into his solar plexus. Joshua felt a couple of ribs crack as the air was sucked out of his lungs and he once again fell to the ground. Even as the waves of pain swept across his body, he still felt a sense of resistance at what she was doing to him, he had decided that whatever happened now, he would stand up to her no matter what. With supreme effort, Joshua raised himself up to a standing position, just barely.

  "You wish to test me then, _quiaff_? So be it." Anastasia said as the baton connected with Joshua's chin.

  Joshua felt a couple of teeth come loose from the bridge of his oral cavity as his jaw nearly shattered from the force of the blow. He stayed upright as bits of enamel and blood began to seep out from his mouth.

  "Why will you not stay down?" Anastasia shouted as she got behind him and delivered a series of blows to his kidneys. The searing pain brought him down once again but he started to get up once he lost all feeling in that part of the body.

  But Joshua's will convinced his battered body to keep resisting as he began to raise himself up by sheer focus. Seeing the boy once again raising himself up, Anastasia had had enough. If she couldn't humiliate him or cow him, then she would deliver the ultimate punishment. Anastasia was certain she could deal with any recriminations in the future.

  Using her baton as leverage, Anastasia wrapped her arms around Joshua's throat as she began to apply pressure on his windpipe. The boy let out a shrill scream that was abruptly cut off as Anastasia continued to strangle him. Joshua tried to struggle but his battered body could only offer token resistance as his fingers tried to claw Anastasia's face but she turned her head; all he could grab at was her jacket. Within minutes, Joshua began to black out from the pain around his throat.

   "Stop!" Anastasia heard a shout from behind but her mind did not register it into her thought process as she continued her relentless chokehold. Within a split second, however, a terrific blow threw her back from the dying boy as she fell back, nearly toppling over a nearby crevasse that marked the boundary of the enclave. The trueborn teenager quickly recovered and she picked herself up as she faced the one who assaulted her.

  It was Natasha. She was standing over Joshua as the boy began to slowly stir back to consciousness. "What have you done?" She screamed.

  "What I should have done a long time ago." Anastasia smiled. "Once that Freebirth dog was dead, his brother would have had no choice but to challenge me to single combat. Then I would be back at my rightful place as leader of our _sibko_, _quiaff_?"

  "_Neg_." Natasha seethed with rage. "This time you have gone too far."

  "So now you have lived up to your Widowmaker heritage, traitor!" Anastasia too lost her temper. "You side with these freeborn scum when we could have been rulers of the _sibko_!"

  "And you would have killed both me and Katya for your precious glory! I will not have anything to do with your ambition!" Natasha shouted.

  Anastasia's voice was low, but it was one tinged with malice. "You are either with me, or against me."

  "Then I am against you." Natasha made her decision. "Your cause ends now."

  "So be it, traitor." Anastasia said. "I will spare you no quarter. After I am finished with you, I will kill the boy."

  "Then one of us will die, Anastasia. Is this what you truly want?"

  "_Aff_!" Anastasia said as she withdrew her blade from its sheath. It was the standard issue Wolf clan combat knife, made from carbon polymers, with a serrated top and a slight curvature on its tip; it was a highly effective weapon. "No quarter will be given!"

  "And none shall be asked." Natasha concluded the challenge as she withdrew her own blade. It was an antique Sykes-Fairbairn commando knife given to her as a gift by Joshua and Cranston. Based on an ancient Egyptian design, it was a thin, black double-edged dagger that radiated death.

  Amateurs hold a knife with its blade pointing downwards in their grip. It is an awkward style of attack due to the fact that the blade can only be thrust in a downward motion to be effective. Therefore, the amateur holds no surprises and their blades can be easily blocked. A street-tough holds the knife with the blade pointing upwards from the hilt and tries to stay mobile during a knife fight, using his natural agility and speed to dodge and evade any incoming blows from a similarly armed opponent while using the knife in a slashing style, attempting to wear down his enemy with little cuts. Though the display of dancing around and flashing your blade would look good in a tri-vid movie, it is pathetic when you compare it to a professional.

  Trained killers hold their blades in an upward grip style like those of streetwise toughs. But that's where the comparison ends. A professional stands flatfooted, holding his ground and staying in a spread-legged stance to maintain his balance, only moving around when an opportunity presents itself, either shifting sideways to trap or flank an opponent, or moving forward to deliver the deathblow. While a gang member doesn't care about his secondary arm, keeping it away from the enemy as if it was a distraction, the other arm is an integral part of a professional knife-fighter's technique, it can be used to block or trap an opponents blade, thereby leaving one's enemy vulnerable to the stab in the critical areas of the body, such as beneath the ribcage, major arteries or the throat. A professional can also slash but unlike a street tough, who only causes superficial damage to tissue when they cut, a professional always goes for muscles, major arteries or tendons in order to cripple an enemy in preparation for a deep stab at their vital areas.

  And both Anastasia and Natasha had been trained thoroughly in the art of knife fighting.

  As both sisters took off their jackets, preferring to fight in their jumpsuits as the wind began to howl around them, Joshua managed to crawl over to where Cranston lay, hoping that his comrade was not severely injured. As he rolled Cranston over to his side with his good arm, he saw that his _sibkin's_ face crinkled in a grim smile as Cranston held onto to a communicator that was hidden beneath his body as he lay on the icy tundra.

  "What?" Joshua's voice was barely a whisper as it came from his raw throat.

  "Emergency communicator." Cranston whispered. "As she was beating you, I send a coded text message to Natasha."

  "You fool. She will kill Natasha." Joshua groaned as he began to slide back into unconsciousness once again.

  Although only a few seconds had passed since the duel began, both sister's secondary arms were mangled from the constant stabs and cuts as each one tried to get inside each other's guard to deliver a killing blow. While Natasha's attacks were more intelligent and precise, Anastasia had a determined rage that enabled her to maintain an aggressiveness that came with the belief that she was in a life or death struggle and so her attacks were striking home with relentless concentration. Natasha still believed that they could resolve their fight without either of them getting killed and so she hesitated in pressing home her own attacks. Consequently Natasha had more serious injuries on her arm than her rival sister had.

  The seconds seemed like days as the icy ground beneath them began to be sprinkled with crimson stains from their bleeding forms. Anastasia drove her knife in sideways, hoping to tear up the ligaments along the elbows of Natasha's blocking arm but the latter was able to twist her limb at the last second as Anastasia's blade cut into her forearm, a spurt of blood jetting out from the stab.

  "Anastasia, we must stop this." Natasha's voice was panting, as she could barely catch her breath. "Before it is too late."

  Despite her injuries, Anastasia was grinning like a red-haired demon, a burning fire in her eyes. "It is already too late, my traitorous sister." She said. "Prepare to meet our founders."

  Natasha tried to jab at Anastasia's side but her sister rapidly jumped back and tried to stab the inner part of her wrist, were the artery was located but Natasha was able to twist her forearm so the knife blow landed on the top of her wrist instead. Anastasia's blow was still powerful enough that Natasha screamed as she dropped her knife from the searing pain.

  As Anastasia drove forward to get in a critical stab, Natasha kicked at the ground and drove bits of sand and snow onto her sister's face. As Anastasia screamed in frustration and backed up to clear her vision, Natasha lunged for her own knife that had fallen on the ground. As she started to pick up her fallen knife, Anastasia recovered quickly and made a downward stab aimed at her sister's throat. Natasha quickly saw her attack and was able to twist her neck at the last instant as her sister's knife plunged into her left shoulder.

  Natasha screamed as blood gushed out from her torn shoulder and she started to collapse. Anastasia's blade lodged itself in her collarbone and both fell onto the ground, Anastasia struggling desperately to free the knife for another stab as her twin sister twisted in pain underneath her. Natasha knew that she would die unless she accepted the fact that she would need to kill for it was the only way to survive now.

  "How does that feel, traitor?" Anastasia taunted her writhing sister as she was at last able to pull out her knife from Natasha's shoulder. Blood seeped from the blade as Anastasia positioned it over her sister's throat. All she needed to do was drive it down and it would be all over.

  "It is not over for me, but it is over for you." Natasha hissed as her bloodstained hands caught Anastasia's wrist and began to twist it the other way.

  "No!" Anastasia shouted as she fought with her sister over the knife. She was trying to drive the hilt downwards to Natasha's throat but it seemed as though her sister just willed the knife to stop and hover, just an inch from her jugular.

  As if by some unstoppable force, the knife began to twist until the tip of the blade now pointed to Anastasia's own throat.

  "No!" Anastasia screamed as the blade plunged beneath her chin and was driven in all the way to its hilt.

  Anastasia gagged as she began to choke in her own blood. She let out a gurgling wheeze and then fell over on her side as her life began to seep out from her. The pain was no longer felt but the darkness seemed so overpowering, so absolute. The last thing she felt was the cold swirl around her and she lost all sense of thought and feeling then.

  "Are you all right?" Joshua said as he helped Natasha to her feet. Anastasia did not realize it but while they were struggling with the knife on the ground, Joshua had crept over and held her other arm on the ground so that she would be unable to use both in order to try to push the blade into Natasha's throat. While Natasha used both hands to pull the knife back from her own throat, Anastasia was fighting one-handed without realizing it. It cost her dearly and she paid the ultimate price.

  Despite the pain, Natasha felt an overwhelming sadness grip her as she saw her sister's lifeless body on the snow. They had grown up together. They were supposed to be destined for great things and even greater glory. Now it was all for nothing. For long minutes she stood there, blood dripping from her wounds as emergency search parties began to approach her.

  After they tended her wounds, they asked her what had happened. But Natasha ignored them and began walking back towards the enclave. Joshua tried to follow but decidedly changed his mind when he saw the look on her face. It took her hours to get back on foot with the cold wind sapping her warmth. 

  And she refused to speak about the incident or her dead sister ever again.


	13. XII Present

_Torrance, Fall Present, 3067._

  After fumbling for the latch, Jimmy Clavell finally got the car door opened and stepped out onto the curve. It was a bright, cheerful morning in downtown Kiverson City but he did not share in its happy mood. Having been pulled out of bed while nursing a terrible hangover was the least of his problems. His head felt like an industrial nail had been pounded into it and the rest of his body still ached from the debauchery the night before.

  His head still spinning, Clavell slammed the car door shut and faced the man who brought him out here. "What the hell are we supposed to do here again?"

  "As I've told you for the nth time," The Monk said. "I received a call from Ethan but it was immediately terminated; I got over to the base but couldn't find him and his office was smashed up. Then I get another frantic call from Kieran McGavin saying something is up. That's why we are here."

  "Smashed up? Ethan's gone?" Clavell could barely focus his thoughts.

  "We did a thorough search of the entire base. Ethan was nowhere to be found. And from my experience, from the way his office looked, there seemed to have been a struggle." The Monk explained.

  "Are you telling me somebody attacked him in his office?" Clavell said. "Why would anyone want to do that?"

  "I don't have all the answers yet, but this is as good a place as any to start." The Monk said.

  "We're in front of a government building in downtown. What could we possibly find here?"

  "Captain Kerensky and Major Durant are inside that building and should be coming out of their closed door meeting soon. I want to talk to her about something that Kieran told me."

  "What did Kieran tell you?" Clavell asked.

  "Something about that new guy that the Captain is dating."

  "Pennington? What about him?"

  The Monk kept adjusting his comm. unit. "Dammit. I keep getting interference. I can't seem to get in touch with anyone."

  "You too?" Clavell was trying his communicator as well. "I'm getting the same interference."

  "Unless-" The Monk's eyes widened in horror at his realization that something terrible had was about to begin. "Something's going down now!"

  Clavell shook his head as he saw the Monk pull out a pair of rangefinder binoculars from his jacket and began scanning the surrounding buildings, his head still hurt. "What's going down?" He said nonchalantly.

  "There!" The Monk narrowed his focus on an office building still under construction on the opposite side of the street. It had a perfect vantage point of the nearby government building. "Let's go!" He said as he ran towards it.

  Clavell sighed and started running after him. He didn't fully understand what was going on but if there was going to be any action, he wanted to be right in the middle of it.

  When it comes to sniping, an absolute stillness of the shooters body is a must. Snipers strive for pinpoint accuracy, so consequently, the slightest breath; the slightest nervous twitch in one's body must be minimized at all cost lest the bullet miss the intended target. Many of the best snipers would actually fall into a trance as they zeroed their sights upon the heads of their targets, being calm as still water.

  The morning breeze helped him somewhat as it cooled the open ledge that he was lying in. It was fortunate that there was a building under construction that had a perfect view on the government building that Natasha was currently having a meeting in. All he had to do was wait until she came out of the front doors and he would pull the trigger on his bolt-action sniper rifle and that would be the end of it. He could go home in triumph.

  But something was bothering Joshua even as he kept performing minute adjustments on his scope. It was a gnawing thing that kept at the back of his mind even as his skills and conditioning tried to push it aside. It was taking all his mental discipline just to keep it at bay and he felt that he might lose the battle anytime and fail the mission. It must be the effect, he thought. The phenomenon was beginning to affect him. That was why he couldn't perform the kill up close or while she was asleep in his bed the night before. Joshua needed to make it as impersonal as possible or otherwise he might just hesitate, and that would have fatal consequences for him.

  As he saw the front doors of the building open, he knew that it was time. Flipping off the safety catch, Joshua peered into his scope and tried to calm his mind as much as possible before he would fire.

  The Monk ran as fast as he could but Clavell's natural speed got the better of him as the former Wolf's Dragoon ran past him and moved up rapidly on the emergency stairwell. He hoped that they would not be too late as he kept trying to contact Natasha on his communicator. If they had tried to get to the government building to warn her, then the assassin would have gotten advance warning and slip away and he did not want that. The Monk started running up the steps of the stair well as Clavell was already two floors ahead of him.

  As the red-haired form of Natasha at last strode out of the doors from the opposite building, Joshua immediately zeroed in on her forehead. The subsonic bullet would be virtually silent to the point of impact.

  Clavell began to tire from pushing himself as he skipped every other step on the stair well but it felt like he wasn't going to get there in time. But he would not give up; he dared not to. The Monk was at least a floor behind him as they both kept pushing their bodies to the limits of their endurance.

  As Joshua rested his finger on the trigger he felt a slight twitch in his arm. Was it the effect again? Joshua silently cursed as he tried to calm his body down but it seemed that he couldn't sight the Black Widow's head properly as she started walking to her vehicle. Wiping the sweat that was distracting him on his forehead, he tried sighting again. Joshua had killed many people this way but this was the first time that every little thing distracted him. The doubts began to form at the back of his mind.

  "Come on!" Clavell shouted down to his comrade as he ran up another flight of stairs. He was almost to the top floor as he drew the dual customized Sternsnacht heavy pistols from the folds of his overcoat.

  Just as he was about to pull the trigger, his left forearm trembled and threw his aim off once again. Joshua was beginning to feel real angry about himself as he heard a noise from the stairwell behind him. Were his senses playing tricks on him?

  As Clavell got to the top stairwell, there seemed to be a solid steel fire door ahead of him, as he tried to push his way through it seemed stuck. Clavell then kicked it with his boot as the lock broke and the door swung open. He ran in without a moment's hesitation.

  Joshua threw a quick glance behind him as the door to the stairwell burst open with a loud crash and Clavell staggered inside the half-constructed floor. The former Wolf's Dragoon was still catching his breath as he saw a man lying on the edge of an open ledge on a foam mattress, a scoped rifle in his arms.

  Clavell brought up his pistols and began to level them at Joshua. The assassin in turn swung his loaded rifle for a snap shot at Clavell's exposed body. Both fired simultaneously.

  The first shot from Clavell's pistol hit Joshua in the shoulder while the second shot from his left gun missed and ricocheted off a concrete support. Because Clavell used dum-dums for bullets that could cause massive tissue damage when they ballooned like pancakes when they struck a person's body but had no armor-piercing capability, the bullet failed to penetrate Joshua's Kevlar vest. It did however, cause a massive bruise on Joshua's shoulder that he dropped the rifle.

  Joshua's subsonic round created a small entry wound as it entered Clavell's chest one inch above his right nipple and nearly two inches to its left at the fourth rib space.

  As it continued its devastating path, the assassin's bullet pierced the chest wall, smashed the front of the fourth rib which then combined it with bone fragments- divided the fourth intercostals artery, vein and neurovascular bundle. Fragments of Clavell's shattered rib became embedded in the right lung and the round sliced right through it, damaging minor pulmonary arteries and veins. Having narrowly missed the trachea, it went slightly lateral to the esophagus and grazed the skin of the heart, then continued to the right of the aorta and entered the posterior chest wall. But its path wasn't finished yet as it drove downward, then smashed the back of the fifth rib, went to the right of the spine and exited out of the upper left side of Clavell's back, creating a large exit wound.

  Clavell made a slight hissing noise as the air left his lungs and fell over to his side. Joshua felt a painful numbness on his shoulder, despite the fact that Clavell's bullet failed to penetrate his vest it was still very painful. As Joshua pulled himself upright, the Monk ran in firing his laser pistol at him. The assassin managed to dodge the first shot as he threw himself off the ledge, his safety rope trailing after him.

  The Monk was panting as he leaned over the ledge as he fired another shot as Joshua had landed on an unused scaffolding on an adjacent building and began to rappel downwards. His other shot missed the assassin as well due to his extreme fatigue then he lost sight of Joshua as the assassin disengaged the rope and started to weave his way among the crowd below. Natasha immediately noticed what had happened as a figure rappelling from the side of the building caught her eye and she quickly started running to the scene. Within a few minutes she had made it to the top ledge where the Monk was. She saw him kneeling over the fallen Clavell.

  "What happened?" Natasha said as she saw that Clavell had lost a massive amount of blood that was pooling on the dusty concrete floor of the unfinished building.

  "It was Joshua Pennington." The Monk said as he began cutting through Clavell's clothes with a knife. "He was going to shoot you with a sniper rifle."

  "Guess…I.. got.. my wish." Clavell's voice was soft, almost a whisper, his face was turning blue. It was clear that he was dying. "W-went up. against.. pro." He peeped.

  "Don't talk, Jimmy." Natasha said as she cradled Clavell's head, then she turned to face the Monk. "Can you take care of him?"

  "Yes. Seems that Joshua was carrying some personal ECM scrambler but since he is gone, my comm. unit is now working and I called for a medivac chopper. Should be here soon." The Monk said.

  "Okay. Stay with him." The Black Widow said as she got up and ran over to where Joshua's safety line had been tied. She quickly grasped it and rappelled downwards using her gloved hands. Her mind had at last grasped the ramifications of all that she was feeling and who Joshua really was. She had to put a stop to him now.

  As he ran down the street and into the subway entrance, Joshua began to take off his Kevlar vest. Dressed in black shirt and trousers, he looked innocuous enough but the vest made him look too conspicuous. Ignoring the startled looks of some pedestrians as he pushed them aside, Joshua ran down the descending escalators and then dumped his vest into a nearby trashcan.

  When Natasha reached the entrance leading into the subway she saw Dominic Durant and a squad of uniformed police officers. It was apparent that they were screening people coming to and fro from the entrance. The police were wearing full battle gear and had laser rifles on the ready; they were taking no chances.

  "Captain, I've sealed off the subway." Dominic said. "No trains will be coming in and none will be leaving. He should be trapped in there."

  "I wouldn't be too sure." Natasha countered as she began her descent into the subway. "I'm going in."

  Dominic shouted after her. "Wait, I've got backup in fifteen minutes."

  Natasha kept going. She had a feeling that something terrible was about to happen and she needed to stop Joshua before it was too late.

  Wiping the sweat off his face and trying to look calm, Joshua cursed silently as the MAGLEV subway train that he was riding in still did not move after almost twenty minutes. People were milling about, confused and bewildered; some were shouting and cussing, wondering why the train doors did not close shut and the train get going. It was then that Joshua realized the awful truth; they knew he was here, and they were going to get to him. As the combination of desperation and anger began to boil within him, Joshua got up and began to walk back out into the terminal.

  As Natasha hurried through the crowd, she noticed someone getting out of a subway car just less than a hundred feet away. The face and walk patterns were all too familiar. Instinctively, she broke out into a sprint. She hoped that she would get there in time.

  Just as he got out of the door, Joshua bumped into a brown-haired youth trying to get inside. "Excuse me." The youth said.

  The boy's voice seemed faintly familiar as Joshua turned and both their eyes met. It was the same deep brown eyes that he had seen in a dossier among the personnel of the Black Widows. As he instantly went on guard, the youth's eyes opened wide with horror and surprise.

  "Joshua!" Kieran McGavin said as he began to pull out the communicator from his pocket.

  With the speed of a thunderclap, Joshua instantly took out a knife from his wrist sheath and drove it at an upward angle into the youth's stomach.

  Kieran screamed as Joshua pulled away from him and began running towards the subway tunnel. If he could get into an emergency access way in the darkness, Joshua could slip away from the rapidly closing gauntlet around him.

  "Freeze!" A uniformed subway policeman shouted at Joshua as he aimed his pistol at him. Without breaking his stride, Joshua flicked his arm as if he was about to put his hands up in surrender but it was in fact a throwing motion as his bloody knife flew and impaled itself onto the cop's throat. The policeman fell over backwards and began to gurgle as he chocked in his own blood. People screamed and pandemonium reigned as bystanders began scrambling for the exits.

  As Natasha got to the subway car entrance she noticed Kieran was sitting down on the concrete platform while leaning against the train. There was a crimson pool forming around him and he was clutching his stomach and shaking uncontrollably. She instantly realized what had happened. For a brief moment, time seemed to stand still as all her other senses blotted out the chaos that was going on around her. Tears flowed from her cheeks as she knelt down beside the boy.

  "Kieran, don't move, help is on the way." Natasha said softly as she tried to pry away his hands from his stomach to try to get a better look at the wound. Kieran weakly acquiesced and she could see that the wound was very deep indeed, the blood gushed like a fountain from the severed arteries.

  The boy looked up at her with sad eyes. It was as if he wanted to say something so badly but was afraid that he couldn't find the words. Natasha smiled meekly as if to say that everything was all right despite the dire situation but the gesture fooled no one.

  "Don't talk, Kieran. Save your strength." Natasha said as she cradled the boy's head in her arms.

  Kieran smiled faintly at her. It was a supreme effort because of the pain but he felt that he needed to do it. 

  "Nasty," The youth's voice was a high-pitched croak.

  "Kieran, I said don't talk."

  "T-take care of Duncan for m-me, p-please." The youth said and then his eyes glazed over and he finally stopped shaking.

  "I will, Kieran. I promise." Natasha was crying uncontrollably as she held him for as long as she could.

  In the darkness of the tunnel, Joshua could see faint glows of reddish tracking lights along the sides that served as guide beacons for him as he continued to run deeper into the tube. If the trains were running he would be in danger of being run over but fortunately they had been stopped. It was quite obvious that they were going to try and corner him; he couldn't and wouldn't be taken alive, that was for sure. His lungs aching from the running, Joshua continued along the twilit tunnel, he had been reviewing the urban maps several nights before, just in case he needed a getaway and he was certain that an emergency access way lay several hundred meters ahead of him. If he could enter that access corridor and make his way out into the city streets, he could disappear. What he was going to do afterwards was not in his thoughts, he was focused on the present, nothing else should have been on his mind. That's what they taught him.

  But something else was bothering him. He should have forced those thoughts away and concentrated on his task but they kept returning, like persistent furies that tormented his mind, forever harrying him, always snapping at his heels. He felt his soul ready to explode from the suffocating pressure, his resolve was weakening and he was afraid of the consequences. New vistas of despair began to manifest themselves and no matter how hard he tried in fending them away, they kept coming back a thousand fold, each worse than before. His body rapidly grew tired not because of his lack of physical conditioning, but of the tortures of his soul.

  Joshua was breathing orally now, globs of spit coming out of his mouth as he sucked in each gulp of oxygen deeply. It was almost as if he was suffocating on air. His body was in peak physical condition and this should have been an easy sprint for him, but his mind wasn't in order and so therefore it brought an additional, physical, burden that was almost unbearable. He had never felt this way before. All of his previous operations ran like clockwork; he had never failed. But it seemed now that the specter of defeat was very real; the question was whether he could recover from this debacle and live on to fight once more.

  Suddenly, he was bathed in an incandescent, almost blinding white light that seemed to be everywhere. Joshua squinted his eyes and waited until his pupils readjusted. He finally stopped and tried to catch his breath. There was no sense in continuing to run. They got him.

  As his eyes readjusted to the now seemingly well-lit surroundings, he realized that he was still in the tunnel. It was apparent that the emergency lights had activated and he could clearly see the concave, white tiled roof of the tunnel that he was running inside of, looking like the shining scales of a giant white snake as it glittered in the light. Joshua half expected himself to be surrounded by a police SWAT team, automatic weapons and lasers on the ready but there was no one there, just him. He seemed alone in a well-lit tunnel.

  After going through a momentary lapse in confusion, Joshua began to sprint once more hoping that the emergency lights that were activated throughout the entire subway was just a stab in the dark, a minor distraction to confuse him because they did not know where he really was. If that was the case, then he still had a chance. As he rounded a bend in the tunnel, Joshua realized how wrong he was.

  Standing in front of him was Natasha Kerensky. She lay in the center of the tunnel, standing in the gap between the MAGLEV tracks that would normally carry the subway trains. Her red hair was matted with sweat and she looked like hell, but even then, there was still a beauty there.

  Joshua could barely catch his breath. "How?"

  "Emergency access way." Natasha's voice was barely a whisper. "You're not the only one who prepared for this contingency. All I had to do was think like you."

  "Tasha." Joshua said as he put his hands up halfway till it was level with his shoulders; it was a strange gesture of peace coming from a killer. "I always knew you were the best. That was why I couldn't bring myself to kill you."

  A tear slid down Natasha's right cheek. "No, you couldn't bring yourself to kill me; instead you killed everyone I love." She said softly.

  Joshua looked downcast then looked straight back into her eyes again. "I didn't mean to, they were in my path. But can't you see? I really couldn't kill you, no matter how hard I tried; my body would just seem to stop me."

  Natasha didn't answer back.

  "I realize now why I couldn't kill you, it was because I always loved you; even though you were my target, I couldn't bring myself to do it." Joshua continued. "We were lovers once in our past lives and it seems that it has once again become our destiny. That's why I will not harm you."

  Natasha's voice was full of rage. "What about Kieran? Ethan? Clavell? Who speaks for them?"

  "Tasha, I love you." Joshua spoke softly. " We can be together again. Just like it was in our past lives. It shouldn't have to be repeated as another tragedy. The Bounty Hunter gave us another chance at life. We were meant to be together."

  Natasha didn't answer. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

  "Tasha, it doesn't have to end like this!" Joshua voice picked up a notch. "Join us in our cause, we owe it to he who breathed life into us once more. We can be together again; with you, nothing can stand up against us. Let us continue on what the first Black Widow and the first Joshua Wolf failed to do. Let us live again!"

  "Joshua Wolf died a long time ago, in New Delos." Natasha said through clenched teeth as the tears kept coming. "You and I, we are nothing but ghosts of the dead. And we should have stayed dead." With that, the Black Widow pulled out a large pistol from behind her jacket and aimed it at him.

  It was one of Jimmy Clavell's Sternsnacht heavy pistols. And its blast was deafening.


	14. XIII Past

_New Delos, Spring Past, 3015._

  Despair had been at the back of his mind. The main thing that was bothering him was in not knowing and that was what was eating him inside. It wasn't the thought of finding his brother dead but rather the anticipation that was causing him more grief. As if in not knowing was more painful and terrifying than at last knowing what had happened and trying to come to grips with it. If he truly was dead then at least he could finally grieve, but it was the gap of time between realization and speculation that drove him to new heights of depression. And that was the one thing he couldn't take. He needed to know now.

  Colonel Jaime Wolf adjusted the controls as his _Archer_ strode along what was once the headquarters of the rebellion against Captain-General Janos Marik. As his 'Mech moved along the smoking ruins, a terrible thought that had been plaguing him since he ordered the assault was becoming painfully clear.

  Following a heated argument with Duke Anton Marik, the leader of the rebellion against his brother Janos, Jaime Wolf had stormed out of the conference and ordered all Dragoons to move out into orbit. His brother Joshua stayed behind with a few dozen staff officers and dependents to try to reason with the Duke. After several days of arguments over HPG, the messages suddenly stopped. After Jaime's repeated failed attempts in trying to contact his younger brother, he received a terse statement from Anton declaring that Joshua and all remaining Dragoons on New Delos were executed.

  At first Jaime couldn't believe it, he thought it was a bluff but a number of uncomfortable thoughts began to chew at his soul and he ordered the entire Dragoons force to descend into New Delos and bring Duke Anton Marik to heel. He had hoped that Anton was just using the statement as a ploy and he didn't really have Joshua killed. Either way Jaime and Natasha Kerensky needed to know the answer.

  Despite heroic efforts, Duke Anton's remaining forces were crushed and Captain Kerenky's Black Widow Company was the first unit to push into Anton's headquarters. The last reply he got from the Widows was that they had breached the palace defenses; that was over twenty minutes ago.

  As he eased the _Archer_ over a blackened wall, he could clearly see that the defenders had tried to use fuel trucks as a literal firewall to try to keep the Widows at bay. Based on the gaping holes caused by autocannon shells and laser scorch marks, it was clear that it was a last, desperate move that ultimately failed. About two hundred meters to his right, Jaime could see the outline of "Gentleman" Johnny Clavell's all-black _Rifleman_, its right arm-mounted autocannons traversing upwards as if in a mock salute to him.

  Jaime's _Archer_ kept going and he finally stopped when he saw the back of Natasha Kerensky's _Warhammer_. The Black Widow's BattleMech was not moving and its cockpit door was clearly open. Jaime punched new coordinates in his sensors as he tried to find where Natasha was. A loud beep on his cockpit's virtual map finally pinpointed where the she was, it seemed that Natasha was just twenty meters to his right.

  After quickly disengaging his seat harness and leaving his neurohelmet on his pilot's chair, Jaime Wolf opened the hatch from his 'Mech and climbed down. The commander of the Dragoons drew his laser pistol just in case there were any fanatical loyalists left. With all that was happening, he couldn't take any chances.

  After moving along gingerly in the still smoldering ruins, he finally noticed Natasha. She was kneeling down beside a collapsed wall of some sort. It was evident from the debris that this was formerly part of the inner courtyard of the palace. Jaime had seen Natasha and Joshua walking along these once grassy paths to the garden, hands tightly clasped in a gesture of affection.

  "Tasha." Jaime called to her as he slowly stepped around some small fires that were still burning and kept making his way to her. The battle had ended just under an hour ago and things were still burning and exploding.

  She did not reply as she kept her back to him. It was apparent that she was doing something; but what it was, Jaime had no clue.

  Jaime finally walked up behind her. Natasha was kneeling down and held something in her hands. "Tasha, are you alright?" He asked.

  She looked up at him with tears streaming down her eyes. What she held in her palm she opened for him to see.

  It was a tuft of wolf fur.


	15. XIV Epilogue

EPILOGUE:

_Outreach, Fall Present, 3067._

  The wind along the starport blew at his face and made him shiver a little bit. His blond hair had been combed neatly but since it was cut short it really didn't matter. He was dressed in a black and red suit that signified him as a cadet in the Dragoon's training school but this occasion had nothing to do with it.

  When he heard the news in a private HPG message addressed specifically to him a few days before, he at first did not want to believe in it. It was as if he was playing one of his imaginary games and he could somehow say "Stop" and that would be the end of it. A part of him thought it was just some sort of joke and that maybe it was all a dream, that he would wake up and find out that it wasn't really true. It wasn't until he was called into the headmaster's office and asked if he would like some time off from his studies that it finally hit him like a bolt of lightning.

  He didn't say anything but from his silence the teachers had got the message. He was sent back to his room in the dormitory and since classes were still in session, his roommate wasn't there. So he collapsed onto his bunk and cried for what seemed like hours until his roommate did return and asked what had happened. He still didn't say anything but since his roommate was told about it, he left him alone and proceeded to the mess hall when the chime signifying chow was heard.

  Duncan McGavin didn't eat for the rest of that day. He just didn't have the appetite for it.

  The DropShip's engines finally went idle and the ramps from its cargo doors had begun their descent onto the tarmac. Duncan continued to shiver as another blast of cold from the north swirled around his little body. Despite the fact that the cold made him numb and dizzy, he would hold up until he got back to the dorm. He needed to show them all that he was strong. He looked around and saw the tech crews also feeling the cold. Weather reports from over a dozen different worlds all told the same thing: winter was coming sooner than expected.

  Duncan bit his lip but maintained his stone-like composure even as the coffin was rolled out from the DropShip's ramp onto the tarmac. It was one of the old-fashioned types, made from solid oak, it had a brown-lacquered finish and had a flag of the Star League draped over it. The little boy's legs trembled as he saw who was guiding the coffin along.

  Natasha Kerensky walked around the coffin and faced the blond eight year-old. She was wearing sunglasses and was half-hidden in an all-black overcoat that seemed to surround her body in darkness. She took her sunglasses off and faced him with tired eyes. Duncan couldn't stand it any longer and ran towards her, wrapping his little arms around her kneeling body as he buried his head onto her shoulders and began to cry.

  "Oh Duncan, I'm so sorry." Natasha was crying as well.

  Duncan's voice was stammering through the tears. "I-it's not your fault, Nasty."

  "Duncan, everyone I love has died." Natasha spoke softly as the grief was so overwhelming. "I think it might be better if I leave you."

  "Nasty, p-please don't leave me." Duncan could barely talk but he kept at it. "I'm all alone now. You're all I have left." He pleaded through the tears.

  The Black Widow held the little boy in her arms as tight as she could. And they both wept.


End file.
